North Somerset

Posted on Thu 19 January 2012

Summary

About

The Evaluation And Sustainability Project has enabled the Local Panel, Local Agent and other partners to review the activities and trajectory of the Fair Share Trust programme in North Somerset over the last few years and to come to some conclusions as to the lessons that can be learnt from such a long term investment project. One such conclusion has been to recognise the importance of good local knowledge about target groups' needs, and making the connection with the possibility for Fair Share Trust funding.

This leads on to a conclusion about the importance of good timing in investment decisions. To illustrate this we can look at the case of one project funded under Priority 2 in 2007 – Community Action applied to Quartet Community Foundation for support through the merger of two local community transport organisations in the Weston-super-Mare area and were subsequently awarded Fair Share Trust funding.

The real benefits of the Fair Share Trust funding have been internal to the resulting organisation: the money helped them to get over the major task of merging two organisations with different cultures and different financial situations. Although there were serious difficulties in the subsequent year or so of the merger because of those issues the new organisation's managers feel that they and the organisation is stronger as a result. They feel that the organisational benefits make it more likely that the Group will be sustainable in the longer term. "Funding is tight and likely to remain so but the new organisation is better set up to handle commissioning".

The main learning for the Fair Share Trust in North Somerset has been that the timely input of a relatively small grant at an important time in an organisation's development can have a large impact.

Back to top