East Riding of Yorkshire Council

Challenge:
Maximise external funding for local community projects

In 2018 East Riding of Yorkshire Council launched a new vision statement to help meet its challenges and make the most of opportunities, now and in the future.

The External Funding team, who are part of the Economic Development Service within the council, are responsible for equipping communities with funding and enabling communities to manage local assets. The team also support internal council officers and community or voluntary groups who are looking for funding to cover everything from sports clubs, churches, schools, and everything in between.

The council recognised that they needed a system that could provide a high standard of everything needed in order to maximise funding potential to support community groups.

Solution:
Bring local community projects to life
The Council who have successfully used Idox systems before, implemented the Idox Open4Community portal in order to provide:

• Up to date grants and funding data
• Help and advice on funding bids
• Online application forms
• Links to forums
• Usage statistics

The council are now able to provide organisations and groups looking to apply for funds with easy access to online application forms through the portal. There is also a ‘Grants and Funding’ page on the Council’s website where East Riding 4 Community (ER4C) is listed as a resource providing easy access.

The council demonstrate the portal at events where potential users can see how easy it is to use and how much information they have available to them.

The key features and functionality that the Council find most useful are the breadth of quality content available on the database and that the data is updated in real time, providing a time saving one-stop-shop for funding information

Outcome:
Over £3m funding secured
The Council’s Open4Community portal ER4C, enables the external funding team to meet their service plan objective to equip communities to bid for funding and helps the council enable communities to successfully bid to manage local assets.

Since implementing Open4Community, grants identified through the portal have been used for the following projects:

• Replacement of a play park
• Cricket coaching for a primary school
• Purchase of kit and training aids for a new football team
• Refurbishment of a church schoolroom
• Toilet refurbishment
• Minibus purchase
• Building a sports pavilion

Findings from an East Riding Council survey show that respondents reported a total income of £3,000,000 since January 2015.

To date, Open4Community has provided the council with a return of investment of £49.00 for every £1.00 spent.