The story so far
Since launching in 2003, the Fair Share Trust has established itself in 80 neighbourhoods across the nation through the work of local delivery partners – ‘local agents.’ The £50m original sum of Lottery money was put into Trust – the first Lottery model of its kind – meaning that the funding is secure and that any interest earned on the original sum covers the management costs, meaning the total £50m will be spent as grants in the Fair Share Trust Areas. The programme runs for 10 years, again showing the foresight of Lottery in its set-up.
As part of the initiative, the former New Opportunities Fund developed with Community Foundation Network the concept of the Fair Share Trust, a £50m expendable endowment fund to be distributed to disadvantaged areas deemed to have received less than their fair share of lottery funding. The Trust is entirely managed by Community Foundation Network (CFN), which has set up partnerships with its members – Community Foundations – and other local grant-making bodies to manage the programme locally. These ‘local agents’ work with the Fair Share Trust communities to prioritise and agree spend, in line with the guidance for delivery, as defined by CFN. Community Foundation Network is the UK’s largest independent community charitable grant-maker.
The Trust was set up to “ensure that a larger share of total Lottery funding is received in the Fair share Areas and that a sustainable impact is made on the lives of disadvantaged people in these areas”. Five years in and the FST is already delivering on its 3 main aims, to:
- build capacity and sustainability in local communities, including support for community assets and planning and involvement in local regeneration
- build social capital offering funding for local social developments, supporting job creation, skills development, social networks and community engagement in local organisations, activities and initiatives, and
- improve the local environment/ liveability enabling communities to make it safer, healthier, greener, cleaner, better designed and more welcoming and accessible to all groups.
Each local agent set up a local advisory panel, involving people from the communities receiving the funding, to agree local priorities, drawn from a Neighbourhood Assessment Documents, based on Local Strategic Partnership data highlighting local community needs and issues. Once the local priorities were identified, the local agents and local panels began identifying potential funding recipients. Each local agent varies in their approach of identifying projects for funding, tailoring the approach in line with local circumstances. Every Fair Share Trust Neighbourhood is currently benefiting from community projects funded through the Fair Share Trust. The initial ‘setting up’ phase has been completed, grants have been made and now the outcomes are being gathered through diligent monitoring and results are being evaluated. The Fair Share Trust emphasises the importance of reflection and shared learning and encourage the local agents to draw lessons from the grants that have been made, and crucially, to share these lessons. At the FST Local Agent Event in Manchester (June 2008) local agents were given the chance to meet with each other and learn from each other’s experiences. The event covered:
- a programme-wide update from CFN
- discussions around local evaluations
- discussions around planning for the end of programme, including exit strategies, and
- a summary of the latest Big Lottery Fund evaluation report.