The purpose of the Community Grant Fund panel
The Community Grants Fund (CGF) is a grants scheme provided by City of Edinburgh Council, which aims to encourage small scale activity that will benefit local communities. Grants of up to £5,000 are awarded to constituted voluntary and community groups across 13 separate neighbourhood areas in the city. Each area receives an allocation of funding to distribute at the start of the financial year and then makes awards via a panel, of which there are 12 across the city. In Leith, an alternative approach known as participatory budgeting is used as part of the ‘Leith Chooses’ initiative. This is based around a public vote.
The role of the panel is to make recommendations about which organisations should receive a grant, in line with local needs and priorities. Panels are community-led, with members including ward councillors, community council members and individuals from local community organisations. Panel members act as representatives of their group, organisation or constituents. They should put the needs of the people they represent first when making recommendations about which projects to fund.
The amount of money available for each neighbourhood area is based on the number of people who live in that area. Some neighbourhood areas are made up of one ward, others are made up of two wards. In single ward areas there is less money available, whereas in double ward areas (of which there are four – one is allocated by public vote instead of by a panel) the total amount available for the panel to allocate is larger.
We expect most panels to only meet once a year, but some may require two meetings to allocate the full budget. It’s important that panels allocate all of the funding as any unspent funds cannot be rolled over into the next financial year. Once all the funding has been allocated, no further panel meetings take place that year.