Winchester Funding Fayre 2023

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Winchester Funding Fayre!

How good it was to have representatives from the charity, voluntary and community sector all together under one roof at Winchester Vineyard Church, to look at funding and fundraising.

The Winchester Funding Fayre organised by us here at Community First and supported by Winchester City Council.

Delegates were treated to five different speakers from national (National Lottery and Heritage Lottery), regional Hampshire & IoW Community Foundation and Hampshire County Council) and local (Winchester City Council), each of whom outlined what funding they currently have to offer and answered questions from the floor.

After an amazing lunch, provided by local Community Interest Company, MUNCH (based at Unit 12, Winnall), there were two interactive workshops superbly facilitated by Stacey Miller and Morya Short. The former looked at ‘Procrastination and Fundraising’ and the latter explored ‘Fundraising ideas’ involving group work.

Having so many inspirational people in one space created a stimulating and worthwhile atmosphere, showing that we are ‘better together’ and enabling each of us to take home some helpful ‘nuggets’ to work on in the days and weeks ahead. Community First invite feedback and follow-on suggestions and would encourage everyone who came to enjoy the benefits of a Community First Membership to benefit from our support even further.

Thanks to everyone who came and to the kind folk at Winchester Vineyard Church for being excellent hosts. We look forward to hearing your funding application successes! As always, your Winchester Community Development Officer, Bruce, is here to support you where needed. You can reach him at bruce.white@cfirst.org.uk

Thank you all for the kind words as well:

“This was an amazing opportunity to meet Funders and provided great inspiration and motivation to move forward with our Funding plans”

“I learned a lot – am determined to make more funding bids now!”

“Really enjoyed today, and came away with concrete ideas for fundraising. It was great to talk in person to potential funders, which will give me the confidence to move forward on making a few funding bids.”

“It was really helpful to hear from each funding body rep about what they’re really looking for in applications – the insight that you don’t get just from reading their guidance information”