From First Steps to Lasting Impact: Our Journey Continues

When we first opened our doors to the Nottingham community in 2022, our initial aim was to run our activities consistently each week. This has always been important because, for many of our participants, the health and wellbeing benefits are not always immediate. Every individual’s journey is unique and we have continued to witness that through our team’s experience and knowledge and with the right support, they will come to feel safe, secure and comfortable in their new environment, and at ease with those around them (something that we are particularly aware of with our participants who are living with Dementia and who continue to amaze us each week with the way our sessions bring out new emotions in all of us). 

During the last three years, this has not been without challenges, due to the way community interest companies (CICs) like ours operate. Our core focus for IMPACD has always been to run as a not-for-profit organisation and to make our activities as accessible and inclusive as possible by offering them free of charge. However, this has brought its own complications in ensuring that there are sufficient funds to cover all of the various running costs.

To overcome this obstacle, we have explored funding opportunities available to charities and organisations like our own. These are mainly provided through either core funding or grant funding. Grant funding involves being awarded a sum of money that must be used for a specific purpose, such as running an activity for a set period of time, and comes with restrictions on how the money can be spent. In contrast, core funding is more flexible, allowing an organisation to use the money towards ongoing operations such as staff salaries, rent, and general overheads.

To date, we have only been able to secure grant funding, which has had varied success. However, this affects the continuity of some of our activities, as it requires frequent new applications and involves waiting periods to find out whether a bid has been successful. We hope to eventually secure core funding; however, this is more difficult due to stricter eligibility criteria, which we currently do not meet, mainly because we are still considered to be in our infancy as an organisation.

Following some recent applications, we have successfully secured four new grants, awarded by:

• Sport England
• The National Lottery Community Fund
• Mencap Seed Funding
• Arts Council England

These funds will allow our key activities to continue at our new studio location at the Greenway Centre in Sneinton and across the Rushcliffe region until March 2027. This marks an important stepping stone for our entire community, who will be able to benefit from improved health and wellbeing on a weekly basis, as well as allowing us to introduce some new and exciting sessions in the near future.

We are very grateful to Sport England, The National Lottery Community Fund, Mencap Seed Funding, and Arts Council England for their support, which enables us to continue our work and support you.

#SportEngland #NationalLotteryCommunityFund #MencapSeedFunding #ArtsCouncilEngland