Organisational support, development, training and fund management.

LDCVS has, since its inception, worked actively with funders, channelling  hundreds of thousands of pounds to tackle local issues. Our grants programme is aimed primarily at smaller organisations which comprise over 80% of the VCFSE sector but receive less than 5% of its annual income (NCVO Civil Society Almanac 2018).  LDCVS has been pivotal in ensuring that all organisations bidding and in receipt of grants meet robust criteria (relating to health and safety, child protection and insurance for example).  Importantly, this has increased their capacity to compete for other opportunities.  

The Covid-19 pandemic has  presented the VCFSE sector with new and unprecedented challenges.  Revenue has reduced just at the time when demand for support, from both communities and the public sector, has increased.  Drawing on our years of experience in administering grants, we launched the ‘The Urgent Response Fund – Coronavirus’ fundraising appeal (see: https://www.totalgiving.co.uk/appeal/coronavirus ) to support organisations working to mitigate the impact of the pandemic in our district. With support and investment from Lancaster City Council, the Westminster Foundation, the Eric Wright Charitable Trust, the National Farmers Union, the Francis C. Scott Trust and the generous public, we raised over £80,000 and we have allocated over £42,000 to over 50 organisations.

Funders can strengthen charities, increase their impact and change the lives of beneficiaries. In our experience, funders who work with us begin to understand the needs and approaches of local organisations and how they work. This has a knock-on effect on the lives of beneficiaries—good grant-making improves more lives. For example, working in partnership with Lancaster City Council, Lancaster Business Improvement District, Lancaster and Morecambe Area Police, we set up the Street Aid initiative - a project to support homeless people become independent. Through our recently launched LDCVS Bay Foundation, we will build on our experience to date, structuring grants in such a way as to create the greatest impact.

Voluntary sector and community development and partnership working.

Lancaster District CVS has a strong history of leading partnerships of local VCFSE organisations to address issues faced by people living in our communities - whether they be youth unemployment (our See Hear Our Unheard teenagers project) or tackling loneliness and isolation (Strengthening Communities project) or family education (our Community Learning Network) and Digital Inclusion (Our REACH IT project).  Working in partnership is at the heart of what we do.  We are proud to be involved in community-led partnerships such as Creative Civic Change programme in the West End of Morecambe, for which we are the Locally Trusted Organisation. Below is a list of other partnership meetings that we attend or have contributed to:

Health & Wellbeing Partnership Board, Communities Together, Community Action Network, Food Poverty Action Group,  Lancaster District Skills Board, Lancaster & Morecambe College Governors, Future in Mind, Community Safety Partnership, Reducing Offending board, Coastal Communities, Lost Art of Living, Lancaster District Children’s Trust, Children and Young People’s Emotional Health board, Transforming Communities Agenda, Morecambe Bay Poverty Truth Commission, Older People’s Forum, Voluntary Sector Alliance, Lancashire Association for CVSs, Chamber of Commerce, Health Innovation Lab, City of Sanctuary, Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care, Mental Health Forum, West End Million Partnership, Art of Connecting Communities, Integrated Care Communities, Creative Civic Change, Integrated Care Partnership, Morecambe Bay Dementia Alliance group, Mobilising Communities, Sustainable Food Lancaster, Population Health Strategic Group, Community Safety Partnership, Homelessness Strategy working group, Lancaster District Voluntary Sector Leadership forum, Community Wealth Building.

We initiated a pilot in 2019 - an approach based on the Community Action Network model - to look at how communities can organise themselves in a ‘place-based’ way. This included mapping all small and specialist organisations in a given neighbourhood, training people in the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter  and working with local residents to create practical linkages between organisations and improve support.  Organisations involved included health and wellbeing services, neighbourhood police teams, voluntary and community groups, local primary schools, local authorities and education providers Since 2019, we have expanded the Community Action network to encompass three disadvantaged neighbourhoods and we aim to increase that to five.

We are well placed to support public sector agencies too.  Because we are trusted by local communities we are able to gather information that the public and private sectors do not have access to.  We save the public sector time and money by providing a single front door to the sector, not just as a ‘provider’, but as a partner in coproduction of services, engaging local stakeholders and amplifying the voice of communities (for example through quarterly forums and special interest groups).

Advocacy, representation and leadership development

We facilitate and broker opportunities, and help to break down boundaries between the VCFSE sector and partners across the region. As facilitator of the VCFSE Leadership forum we help organisations to share knowledge and experience, to debate their differences and unite around a shared vision.   We work with the Health and Wellbeing partnership and the Integrated Care Partnership to ensure that VCFSE leaders are represented within the Bay Health infrastructure. We have worked hard on developing an action plan and a Memorandum of Understanding between the VCFSE and public sectors.

Together with our partners, we aim to achieve:

• The inclusion of smaller micro / community groups in dialogue, co-design and collaboration between the sectors, and a commitment to co-production with local people.
• The strengthening of relationships between public sector staff and VCFSE staff and volunteers at all levels, with a view to improving outcomes for local people.  
• Joined up intelligence – giving VCSE organisations better access to data and ‘market intelligence’ and ensuring that VCFSE knowledge informs public sector intelligence functions.
• meaningful VCFSE involvement in public sector transformational programmes and collaborations, such as: the Bay Deal, Bay Health Care Partners, Morecambe Bay Curriculum, Community Wealth Building, Mental Health Transformation – ensuring that these programmes build on, and do not duplicate, the work of the sector.
• Acknowledgement of the VCFSE sector’s success in delivering on Strategies such as Community Conversations, Tackling Poverty etc, together with opportunities for further work.
• a positive procurement strategy to maximise the effectiveness of commissioning processes with respect to the VCFSE.
• arrangements whereby larger VCFSE organisations use their significant resources to foster collaboration within the VCFSE sector and with other partners, and provide support to smaller organisations.   

Administration, communications, finance and governance

Effective administrative, communication, finance and governance systems underpin the activity outlined above.   These are both central aspects both of our own organisation and of the support that we provide to the wider sector.  As Trusted Local Organisation we provide administrative support for the West End Morecambe, Creating Civic Change programme for example.  We help a number of organisations with their payroll processes and advise upon questions of governance.