With less funding now available, are rural communities feeling the pinch? Jessica Sellick investigates.

Many community groups, parish and town councils, charities and social enterprises have relied upon grants programmes at one time of another to help them do something to improve their local community and the lives of residents most in need. This funding may have been from a Local Authority, Government, a non-departmental public body or charitable trust or foundation. Yet the landscape is changing, with less funding now available and/or eligibility criteria changing, are rural communities feeling the pinch? Jessica Sellick investigates.

In June 2015 Rob Wilson, Minister for Civil Society, set out the Government’s vision for a ‘bigger stronger society’. Mr Wilson described this as “a society where everyone has the chance to contribute to their community, and where those communities are self-confident and civically engaged. It is a world where people ask what they can do for their community not only what their community can do for them”.

This seems to chime with the ‘Big Society’ theme where people in their everyday lives would no longer always turn to Local Authorities or central Government for answers to the problems they faced, instead helping themselves and their own communities. At the same time the Government continues to change the way public services are delivered – thus opening up delivery to providers from public, private and/or community and voluntary sectors.

In practice, there are three rural issues that are often overlooked here. The first relates to recognition of the sheer number of rural residents already actively involved in their local communities before the Big Society/Bigger Stronger Society was invented.

The second and connected issue is that a more ‘open market-based approach’ for the delivery of services needs to acknowledge just how much rural residents already do (often informally and on an ad-hoc, responsive basis) to support their local community and the extent to which they want / are able to become more active partners in the planning and delivery of rural services is in doubt.

The third issue is one that is well rehearsed among RSN members, namely the ‘rural premium’ or additional costs of delivering services in the countryside. Provisional figures for 2015-2016 show that spending power per head is £73 per head less than in urban areas yet Council Tax is £81 higher per head for rural residents compared to their urban counterparts.

With a further Comprehensive Spending Review due on 25 November, local authorities will discover this autumn what they will have to spend in the next four years - from April 2016 through to March 2020.

In July 2015, the Chancellor wrote to the heads of all central government departments that do not have ring-fenced funding, asking them to model two scenarios of 25% and 40% of real-terms savings by 2019–2020.

Whatever announcements are made all public services are under pressure and the trajectory of finding further cuts and ‘doing more with less’ seems likely to continue. This will undoubtedly affect rural communities who rely upon the public sector not only for the delivery of services but also to help them with projects (e.g. will free information, advice and support be available to communities from planners, community development workers, health professionals, environment officers etc.?)

Outside of public sector funding and support, rural communities are finding the ‘other funders’ (i.e., the charitable trusts, foundations and non-departmental bodies) are also changing what, where and how they award money.

In March 2015, Dawn Austwick (Chief Executive, Big Lottery Fund) launched the Fund’s new Strategic Framework 2015-2021: “No bells or whistles. No dancing horses. No fanfare of trumpets. The Big Lottery Fund’s new strategic framework is a rather modest two pages and will quietly gather pace over the next few months. It’s more of a statement of intent than a detailed set of directions, a jumping off point for future choices… in a nutshell it’s: ‘People in the Lead’. From this everything else flows: we want to start with what people bring to the table, not what they don’t have; and from the belief that people and communities are best placed to solve their problems, take advantage of opportunities, and rise to challenges. Our job is to support them in doing so.”

The Lottery is now implementing the Strategic Framework, with a ‘blended funding model’, the interplay between different funding approaches across the organisation’s portfolios, and it is the Fund’s intention to get closer to communities and work more effectively with other local funders, such as community foundations.

Similarly, in March 2015 the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation published its five-year Funding Strategy. While the Foundation expects the austerity drive to continue with statutory provision retrenching it does not believe philanthropic funding will fill the merging gap and short-term crisis cannot be the long term strategy.

At the same time, the Strategy describes how communities are ‘crying out for space, time and faith to re-design and innovate. Crucially under the themes of art, children and young people, environment, social change and food the Foundation is looking to fund projects that have outcomes with a lasting impact beyond the lifespan of the funding provided.

In the current economic climate, all funders are under pressure to ensure that they make the best use of resources in pursuit of clear but realistic goals. So if you’re a rural community looking for funding what might you need to consider?

Firstly, don’t chase funding – or you may find yourself on a treadmill of making and/or fulfilling grant applications that may not be relevant to what you actually want to do. It’s about your idea, what it is you want to do, whether other members of your local community are on board, and if this is the right thing for your community or if there are other issues that mean a different solution might be needed.

And it is from this ‘idea to plan’ stage which your business plan and potential funding streams come from. This prevents communities from spending lots of time filling in forms for grants which don’t match what they want to do.

Secondly, ask yourself if you are ‘investment ready’. The terminology that many funders are using is changing with applicants that have the attributes that make them an ‘investible proposition’ more likely to secure the finance they are seeking. Are you investment aware? Could you receive investment but are not seeking it? Or are you seeking investment but at the wrong time or without proper preparation?

Are you business like in how you operate – have you got a strong board and staff/volunteer base, built investment into your business plan, manage opportunities and risk as well as have a risk register and contingency plan to help you manage your income?

Thirdly, in addition to the targets and outputs in your funding agreement which will be monitored by the funder; what are your outcomes, impact and sustainability that are a result of the funding you have received? Ensuring you can tell funders, stakeholders and the people in your community about the difference you are making (in terms of data/measurement and through case studies) will demonstrate the value you offer.

As funders grapple with increasing volumes of applications they want applicants to fully consider their exit strategy, legacy and sustainability – some funders do not want to be viewed as ‘giving grants’ and being ‘a revolving door for communities’. Of course many projects may require some ongoing grant support but ‘co-mingling’ or mixing income generation so applicants generate some funds themselves (e.g. by charging for some services, offering consultancy) or use other means appropriate to their project (e.g. Crowd funding) to complement traditional funding approaches are becoming more commonplace.

Finally, I think it is important for funders to ‘think rurally’. With exceptions such as The Prince’s Countryside Fund t is disappointing that over the last five years many charities, foundations and non-departmental public bodies have ended their rural grants programmes. On the one hand, this is part of attempts to mainstream, to get groups to come forward with good ideas and follow a ‘no wrong door’ to ensure it succeeds and gets funding.

Some funders focus on deprivation and measure it in a way that favours urban rather than rural areas. On the other hand, how can we get funders to consider rural issues in the planning and delivery of grants? For example, could rurality be one of the metrics they use when considering applications? How can funders be clear on the level and type of demand there will be in the countryside and how can rural communities respond to funding opportunities?

If funders want to be ‘demand led’ not ‘grant led’ as part of an overall movement away from seeing communities as having problems/being in deficit to wanting to do things for their community, and with grey areas emerging for some funders who now support services that would have been provided by the state such as supporting victims of domestic violence, what funding and support will be available for rural communities in the years ahead?

One thing is clear, a call for more money and a return to the previous status quo are both out of the question.

Jessica is a researcher/project manager at Rose Regeneration; an economic development business working with communities, Government and business to help them achieve their full potential.

She has undertaken a mid-term evaluation of a Wellbeing Service, which aims to reduce hospital admissions and the need for long term residential care by putting in place a community package of support (e.g. equipment, adaptations, TeleCare) and recently completed a European project on ‘social value’.

Jessica’s public services work includes research for Defra on alternative service delivery and local level rural proofing. In her spare time Jessica volunteers for a farming charity that offers a 24/7 advice and support service for farmers, their families and the wider community with the purpose of 'preventing things from getting to the desperate stage'. She can be contacted by email [email protected] or telephone 01522 521211. Website: http://www.roseregeneration.co.uk/ Twitter: @RoseRegen