Residents and community groups now have a second chance to bid for a slice of a £2million council fund created to help people celebrate the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
The Celebrating Communities Small Grants Funding Scheme has been assembled by Birmingham City Council to maximise the benefit and legacy of being the Proud Host City for the Games.
Ideas are being welcomed from all 69 of the city’s wards to ensure everyone feels involved with the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games – regardless of whether they have a competition or cultural event in their neighbourhood or not.
Grants will be available to run initiatives which deliver against one of three themes: ‘Get Active’, ‘Ready, Steady, Fun’ and ‘Celebrating Culture’ – which are described as follows:
Getting Active – encouraging communities to get out and get active by participating in sports and recreational activities. The overriding aim should be to encourage residents, of all abilities and ages, to engage in physical activity and improve their health and wellbeing. This could, for example be anything from running to gardening and walking – it isn’t restricted to traditional/organised sport.
Ready, Steady, Fun – delivering community projects to ensure a local area is Games ready (e.g. by improving communal space, and hosting community celebrations to connect people and foster civic pride).
Celebrating Culture – developing community-led cultural events and initiatives that encourage intergenerational activities. Proposed schemes should harness the power of culture to bring people together, celebrate their identities, Birmingham’s place in the Commonwealth and the culture, heritage and stories of their communities.
The scheme will allocate funding across the city’s wards using a formula that takes into account local deprivation data and the size of the ward.
Wards with one councillor will receive between £11,100 and £17,500. Wards with two councillors will receive between £22,200 and £35,000.
Cllr Ian Ward, Leader of Birmingham City Council, said: “Our aim is for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games to be a Games for everyone, bringing people and communities across the city together.
“Through this fund residents and community groups can play a big part in a city-wide celebration.
“We want everyone to embrace our status as a Proud Host City and, thanks to this funding, there are lots of ways for communities to get involved and show how bold Birmingham really is. We hope Celebrating Communities will help unlock some of the local excitement and help make the events of 2022 memorable for the people of Birmingham.”
The deadline for Round Two applications is 30 November 2021. Ward Forums and community voting will then take place to select the successful bids between February and March of next year, with projects then commencing in April 2022.
The successful Round One applicants are set to be named in the coming weeks – those who have bid in Round One are welcomed to resubmit their initial ideas, but if successful in Round One, the same scheme will not be considered again when finalising the Round Two awards. This means an organisation could be successful with two different bids in the two rounds.
