Oxfordshire All In make funding application to OCF
We have been invited to make a funding application to Oxfordshire Community Foundation’s Recover Stronger Fund.
We submitted our application yesterday afternoon (Thursday 25th June), and sought OCF’s permission to publish it publicly here too. You can find our covering letter and application form below.
Why publish publicly? Given that the stated purpose of our work is to be an effective infrastructure for community support and action - working with and on behalf of people, local communities, established voluntary organisations, and the public sector - it makes sense that these people and groups have this kind of information about us. We welcome challenges, constructive, and positive feedback to the ideas and plans contained - everything that will both hold to us account and ensure that - if our bid is successful - we are truly working for people and local communities as effectively as possible.
We encourage a diversity of opinion and a safe space to give feedback of any kind, so please do not be shy to engage with us, especially if you think we could be doing better - we want to hear from you! Not everything we are doing is contained in this application, and we hope you will find much more on our current activities and plans across our website too.
Due to the time constraints of our application and the large number of organisations we work with, we were unable to ask for their explicit permission to identify them in this public facing document and this information has been redacted. You can find out more about some of our partners here, and those within each strand of our work by contacting us. If there are elements of the work included that you would like to partner with us in achieving, please let us know!
Covering Letter
Application Form
Our plans to support and sustain Community Action
Early 2020 has been a reminder of the way in which people will pull together to help each other when it's really needed. But it has also seen inequalities widen as an effect of coronavirus. These inequalities won't go away as lockdown reduces, and we now need community action more than ever. If we are to sustain and support some of this new community activity, we need to act now!
We are now facilitating a coordinated offer of support, particularly to informal Community Support Groups unsure of their futures. The goal of this coordinated offer of support is to sustain - at town or district level and in coordination with existing local community organisations - a network of ‘Community Champions’, in a way not dissimilar to the excellent work of Oxford Hub in Oxford City. This network of Community Champions will connect with and complement existing community action in local areas, helping us to share best practices, connections, and a sense of shared purpose across the county.
We are calling all organisations who can offer concrete, practical support - particularly in the voluntary sector - to work with us. We can help you to make your offer known as widely as possible, and work together to ensure that community support remains joined up across the county in useful ways.
It is only together that we can properly support people and communities make their own decisions on how to continue, with all possible resources at their fingertips. Let's get to work!