The National Lottery Community Fund
Grants
We are thrilled to have received £50,000 of National Lottery Community Funding for 3 years to transform the lives of adults with mental health or learning disabilities who struggle to find work. This very generous grant will help us provide tailored, one-to-one support to give people the skills and confidence to live independently, including:
– CV writing
– Interview techniques
– Budgeting
– CookingThe People’s Projects
We are delighted to have been a runner up in the 2023 National Lottery and ITV’s The People’s Projects and to have been awarded £10,000. We are working with our service users to develop their cooking and growing skills, learning ourselves along the way! We are very grateful to our volunteers and local community organisations that are helping us.
Anita Longley has been in to do some planting with us – there are now sunflowers, nasturtium, tomatoes and basil plants steadily growing in the warehouse. It’s not been all sunshine and roses though, as we have seen the damage mites can do and what happens if we forget to water . . . all important learning.
Mark has been teaching us gardening skills including hedge clipping, rose pruning, strimming, jet hosing and weeding. If you would like us to tackle your garden let us know.
Other major grants in the year to 31 March 2024
Thank you for these wonderful grants:
In 2023 and 2022 we received £15,000 of funding from Swindon Borough Council to help get our vulnerable adults into paid employment, volunteering or training. Together, quarterly, we monitor the outcomes and work through the barriers.
Yet again Wiltshire Community Foundation have saved the day! They donated three £5,000 payments across 2021, 2022 and 2023 towards our production supervisor’s salary. Grants like these are vital for us . . . and so is Karen. And they have also awarded us a £8,650 Cost of Living grant to help us with the massive increase in electricity costs. Thank you so very much!
Enormous thanks also goes to these organisations, without whose support we couldn’t have managed!
- The 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust
Multiply
We are thrilled to have been awarded a Multiply grant from Swindon Borough Council. We are helping our service users develop their maths skills, with a specific focus on budgeting and money management.
Phoenix is meeting the needs of those most impacted by the increased cost of living. 100% of our people are on benefits. Their mental health and learning disabilities mean they often struggle to advocate for themselves, planning and financial management is challenging for them, and their resilience is often low.
Mental health and money problems are linked. More than 1.5million people are experiencing both problem debt and mental health problems. 46% of people in problem debt also have a mental health problem.
Mental health issues and learning disabilities can be financially debilitating and very isolating. This grant is helping us improve service users’ numeracy and financial literacy.
Major grants in the prior year - thank you!!
We were awarded a £20,000 Community Training Grant from the European Social Fund and the Education and Skills Funding Agency to help get our vulnerable adults into paid employment, volunteering or training. We received £8,000 in 2022 and £12,000 in 2021. With this funding we ran a Step Forward program, through which 18 of our people had focused effort on furthering their progression into work.
The fabulous Garfield Weston Foundation awarded us £20,000 in January 2023 towards our operating costs. We could not be more grateful and will use the funds to get more people with learning disabilities into paid work.
We are so very very grateful to The Sackler Trust for their donation. This will make a significant difference towards helping support Phoenix service users.
A big thank you to the National Benevolent Charity for two £5,000 grant payments, one in 2021 and one in 2022, towards our service user supervisor’s salary. We couldn’t survive without generous grants like this.
Enormous thanks also goes to these organisations, without whose support we couldn’t have managed!