Community Ownership Fund: prospectus
The Community Ownership Fund bidding prospectus provides detailed guidance on the purpose of the fund, eligibility criteria, funding and support assessment criteria and the decision-making process. Please see below for update on Round 3.
Documents
Details
The government is providing £150 million over 4 years to support community groups in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to take ownership of assets and amenities at risk of being lost.
Voluntary and community groups can bid for funding to acquire important assets and run them for the benefit of the local community.
The Fund will run until March 2025. We intend to run regular bidding windows throughout the year for applicants to submit a full application to the Fund.
The Community Ownership Fund launched an updated prospectus on 12 May 2023.
We have made positive changes to the Fund for future bidding windows. Changes to the design of the programme and the eligibility requirements are informed by applicant feedback, stakeholder engagement, and lessons learned from previous rounds. These changes are explained in the updated Community Ownership Fund prospectus and we will publish the Round 3 webinars on 17 May 2023.
The Community Ownership Fund EOI is open for applications, ahead of the launch of the next application window of the fund.
Round 3 Window 1 will open on 31 May 2023 and will close at 11:59am (midday) on 12 July 2023.
Development support is now available to applicants via the My Community website. They will also be providing informative webinars on the following topics which you can register for now:
- How to create a strong Community Ownership Fund application
- How to raise match funding for your Community Ownership Fund project
Our development support provider offers initial support and advice to all interested applicants up to the EOI stage. After the EOI stage, certain applicants will be able to access in-depth support for the development of their application and business case, this may also include access to small revenue grants to secure specialist support.
Last updated
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Update made to sections 7 and 11 to clarify assessment criteria for larger projects and the documents that applicants should upload.
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Added Community Ownership Fund prospectus, Round 3.
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Updated to reflect the opening of the third bidding window of Round 2.
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Change to eligible funding requirement.
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Added translation
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Added new version of prospectus covering changes to the eligibility requirements and application process.
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Details of new round 2 start date and reopening of round 1 added.
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Added Welsh translation
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First published.