WMCA: Mayor's Community Weekend

What it’s all about?

• On the weekend of 30 June and 1 July 2018, we want to encourage communities to come together and celebrate our region's diversity as part of the Mayor's Community Weekend. 
• We’re working in partnership with the Big Lottery Fund who will be offering grants of up to £500 to groups who want to run an event. The event can be anything that brings your local community together such as organising a community picnic in the park a community sports day, volunteering for gardening duties or community painting.

What we want to see?

• We want to fund events that seek to bring different communities and generations together, and that promote health and wellbeing. We’re keen to see that events are led by people.
• This means that the people in your community are part of the development, design and delivery of your event.
• Show us that you’ve spoken to them, taken on board their ideas and got them involved in your activities.
• We’re also keen to see events that are community focused, bringing people together who wouldn’t usually interact, and events with a long term vision, with plans for what will happen afterwards, looking at how relationships will be sustained.
• You can read more about the type of event we are looking for here.

Organise event without funding

• You may not require funding to host your event. If this is the case all you need to do is submit your event. All events are subject to application approval to be part of the Mayor’s Community Weekend. Successful applicants will be notified via email by 1 May 2018.
• Submit your event details here: https://www.wmca.org.uk/who-we-are/meet-the-mayor/mayors-community-weekend/event-details

Event funding information

Who can apply?

• Anyone – whether you’re a fully constituted organisation, a small informal group that already exists, or even just a few people from a local community coming together for the first time. All we ask is that the event takes place in one of these areas within the West Midlands:
• Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Herefordshire, Sandwell, Shropshire, Solihull, Staffordshire, Stoke, Telford, Walsall, Warwickshire, Wolverhampton, Worcestershire
• If you aren’t constituted, we’ll ask you to complete a very simple set of rules which will help you run the group, make decisions about the event and manage any money given to you. This will only last for the duration of the weekend.

What you can spend the money on

• We will pay for costs up to £500 towards events taking place in the West Midlands on the weekend of 30 June to 1 July 2018.
• There are some things we can’t pay for, for example:
  • activities that happen outside the West Midlands
  • items or activities you have already paid for before you get a decision
  • items which only benefit an individual
  • alcohol
  • political or religious activities
  • profit-making/fundraising activities
  • general running costs, including repairs and maintenance.

When to apply?

• The Mayor’s Community Weekend is open for applications from 9am Thursday, 29 March and the deadline for applications is 9am on Monday 16th April.
• Any applications that are incomplete at the deadline date will not be considered.
• We’ll tell you if you’re successful within four weeks of the closing date.
• This will give you time to buy anything you need and to prepare for your event.
• Apply for funding here: https://r1.surveysandforms.com/c03v8d2c-b02uzhd4

How to apply?

• To apply for funding, you can either submit a short video (up to three minutes) or through a written online application (up to 500 words).
• You’ll be asked to answer the following three questions:
  • What event will you be holding, and how will the money be spent? (100 words)
  • Who will be attending, and to what extent will they be involved in the delivery of the event? (200 words)
  • How will this bring your community together? (200 words)
  • We’ll also ask you how many people you expect to attend, and in what postcode the event will take place.
  • If applying in writing, we recommend that you prepare your answers to the questions first before applying online, as it’s not possible to save your progress.

How we make our decision

• The Mayor’s Community Weekend is a competitive programme and we expect to receive more applications than we’re able to fund. We are especially keen to fund events which;
  • Bring different communities together
  • Bring different generations together
  • Promote health and wellbeing

We have adapted our approach to make sure that there is a fair spread of events across the West Midlands.

If you get funding

• Grants are likely to be provided via a prepaid card that you can use to buy items for your event. We will be able to monitor your expenditure to check you have spent the grant as described in the application.
• After the event, if money is not spent, this will automatically be returned to the Big Lottery Fund to go towards other good causes.
• Take photos and videos of your event as we’d love to see them afterwards. We may also visit the event to celebrate with you.
• If there are any changes to your event please let us know as soon as possible by emailing community.weekend@biglotteryfund.org.uk