Dwindling dole outs from Belfast and Brussels prompts conference

Derry City Council is holding a half-day conference at the Tower Hotel to help community groups and organisations look at “alternative options to grant aid and funding.”

Starkly, the conference is actually called ‘Beyond Funding.’

Sue Divin, Community Relations Officer with the Council explained: “Most of us are all too aware of the complexity in sustaining and juggling grants to keep our Community and Voluntary Sector groups going.

“Many community organisations are at the end of some funding streams, or facing funding gaps before ‘Peace IV’, or simply finding pots of funding shrinking and becoming more competitive at a time of austerity, so this event will be of great assistance to them.”

She added: “‘Beyond Funding’ aims to help organizations move from dependency and grants to developing other income streams and working towards a different approach to sustainability and ‘mainstreaming’ of initiatives.

“It will aim to present practical strategies, income generation ideas, case studies and examples to helping make groups a more ‘multi-income’ organisations.

“It is relevant to community and voluntary groups and statutory staff working with communities or similar.

“The conference facilitator, Diversiton, is a leading provider of mainstreaming and sustainability capacity building work.”

It will take place on Tuesday (October 1) between 9.15am and 12.45pm.