PCC's Grassroots Innovation Fund launch - recording

Описание: Community organisations are embedded in the community and therefore can quickly adapt to emerging issues and trial new approaches. Their agility makes them ideal partners for innovation-focused funding like the Grassroots Innovation Fund.

The Grassroots Innovation Fund is designed to support bold, community-led ideas that may not fit traditional funding models. It encourages innovation, flexibility, and fresh approaches to long-standing challenges.

Charities and organisations must explore innovative approaches to address social justice and fairness that helps to deliver the Police and Crime Plan, priorities creating a Safer and Fairer Bedfordshire including: 
• Preventing crime – exploring opportunities to tackle the causes of criminality, identify options to reduce reoffending, increase the use of early intervention and supporting the community to reclaim and rebuild their neighbourhoods adopting a public health approach where appropriate.
• Tackling serious crime – committing to reduce serious violence, improving engagement and crime prevention among children and young adults, improve public confidence and reporting of crime and exploring interventions to reduce the risk to those vulnerable to exploitation.
• Putting victims at the heart of the criminal justice system – streamlining and evolving criminal victim services to improve the victim journey, promoting the use of trauma informed practise and increasing engagement, activity and trust in reporting and accessing services for underserved and underrepresented victims.
• Building an excellent criminal justice system – focusing on a problem solving, whole system approach, exploring opportunities for out of court resolutions and restorative practises to seek social justice.
• Protecting women and children - to improve and develop safeguarding, benefit from partnership opportunities to prevent violence against women and children, identifying and addressing harmful behaviours demonstrated by perpetrators, increase confidence in reporting crimes and working to understand and identify gaps in service available to support victims.
• Securing an excellent police service – improving public confidence in the police, grant funding community level solutions and identifying opportunities for business, voluntary and community sector organisations to work collaboratively.
• Reinvigorating local policing – adopting a problem-solving approach engaging with community groups, adopting new approaches to community concerns such as rural crime, community cohesion and social inclusion and education and diversion away from criminality.

The fund will support new innovative projects, designed to make Bedfordshire safer and fairer. This fund is in addition to commissioned grants and projects which are already in place. The PCC is inviting community groups and small charities to submit proposals up to £5,000 on new projects.

The PCC is committed to hearing from new voices across Bedfordshire including Bedford Borough, Central Bedfordshire and Luton- especially those not previously engaged with the OPCC.

This funding opportunity is designed to be accessible, inclusive, and open to smaller, grassroots organisations that can reflect real community needs.

This initiative reflects the PCC’s commitment to inclusive, community-led commissioning.

This is a chance to strengthen our connection with communities and support innovation at the grassroots level.

The initiative is part of the PCC’s wider funding, grants and commissioning strategy, and for the first time, it is providing opportunities for community groups and charities to come forward with their ideas, rather than responding to very prescriptive criteria for grants.

The OPCC is eager to see how local organisations respond to the opportunity that the Grassroots Innovation Fund presents.

The outcomes of Grassroots Innovation Fund-funded projects will be closely monitored, not just in terms of outputs, but in how they improve lives, strengthen communities, and contribute to a safer and fairer Bedfordshire.