About the fund

In January, 2023 the government confirmed the launch of the Know Your Neighbourhood (KYN) Fund, an up-to-£30-million package of funding designed to widen participation in volunteering and tackle loneliness in 27 disadvantaged areas across England.

Of this up to £30 million, £19 million of government investment, and over £1 million of match funding,funding willhas supportsupported people living in disadvantaged areas to connect with others in their community and engage in volunteering, with the aim of improving wellbeing and pride in place. The National Lottery Community Fund ishas also investinginvested up to £10 million to support their existing projects working across the same target areas.

Following a competitive process, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) confirmed in January 2023 that £14 million of the total £19 million government funding would be delivered by UK Community Foundations (UKCF)(UKCF) and a consortium of local community foundations across 9 local authority areas. These are:were: Wolverhampton, South Tyneside, Kingston-upon-Hull, Blackpool, Stoke-on-Trent, Great Yarmouth, Fenland, County Durham and Barrow-in-Furness. This funding iswas being  targeted at people who havehad not had opportunities to volunteer before, or who arewere experiencing loneliness. They arewere being supported to access enriching opportunities thatwith willthe helpaim toof improveimproving their wellbeing, skills, confidence and social connections.

DCMS sectors offer opportunities for people to participate in volunteering and connect with others in their areas. The remaining £5 million of government funding is was therefore being invested in supporting people to participate in volunteering and connect with others through expanding the existing offer of arts, culture and heritage activities across the 27 KYN target areas. This funding iswas being delivered by Arts Council England (ACE) and the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF), in partnership with Historic England.

ACE isdelivered delivering funding to arts and culture organisations across the 27 areas through partnership working with three delivery bodies: the Association of Independent Museums, Creative Lives, and Libraries Connected. NLHF isworked workingin partnership with Historic England to deliver additional funding through their established High Street Heritage Action Zones programme.

The KYN Fund will run until March 2025. A key focus of the programme willis be to generate and share learning on how people in disadvantaged areas can be supported to volunteer and improve their social connections, which will help to support sustained action beyond the lifetime of the fund.

FurtherFor further details of organisations awarded grants through the KYN Fund up to March 2023, see Major fund to tackle loneliness and boost volunteering in disadvantaged areas launched.

For further details of organisations awarded grants through the KYN Fund from April 2023 onwards, see Volunteering boost for charities, libraries and museums.

Since then, further grants were awarded up to March 2025 totalling more than £1 million. For details of these grants, see the spreadsheet below.

Know Your Neighbourhood Fund grantees March 2025

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Selected places and methodology

We recognise that a fund of this size would not be able to reach every area in need of support. We therefore decided to take a targeted approach, identifying the areas most in need.

We identified the below 27 target areas using data on:

• people and local economy factors (for example, household incomes, local labour markets, economic and multidimensional deprivation)
• strength of civil society and community factors (for example, depth and breadth of local VCSE activity and funding, level of volunteering and community participation)

To identify high-need areas based on people and local economy factors we have used the 2019 English Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD).(IMD). To identify high-need areas based on the strength of civil society and community factors we have used the Community Needs Index (CNI).(CNI).

We have ensured that the list of eligible areas represents a balance of both rural and urban areas.

Eligible areas

• Barnsley
• Barrow-in-Furness
• Blackpool
• Bolsover
• Burnley
• Cannock Chase
• County Durham
• Doncaster
• Fenland
• Great Yarmouth
• Halton
• Hartlepool
• King’s Lynn and West Norfolk
• Kingston upon Hull
• Knowsley
• Middlesbrough
• Rochdale
• Sandwell
• South Tyneside
• Stoke-on-Trent
• Sunderland
• Tameside
• Tendring
• Thanet
• Torridge
• Wakefield
• Wolverhampton