Funds for the Future

The Community Farm has recently secured a significant amount of funding to support its future development.

We have been awarded a £50,000 Social Enterprise Development Award from Santander and a grant of £97,000 over three years from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. We have also been contracted by the Bristol Drugs Project to provide five organic apprenticeships.

This is absolutely fantastic news for the Farm!

Here are some details of the funding:

 

Social Enterprise Development Award from Santander Santander's Social Enterprise Development Award of £50,000 is the largest amount awarded in the South West!

We will use this funding to buy some essential equipment for the field including a power harrow and muck spreader. We'll also buy a new delivery van - well, new to us anyway! Our delivery vans cover about 20,000 miles each a year so we need to look after them and invest when we can. Further funds will help us stabilise our staffing team and continue with our community engagement work.

 

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation has awarded us a grant of £97,000 over three years. This grant will allow us to invest in our volunteering and employ a full-time 'Community Farmer' to work with our volunteers. We are already advertising for the post of Community Farmer.

 

Bristol Drugs Project Organic Apprenticeships This contract very much addresses the social remit we have set ourselves as an organisation. From November 2013, we will be contracted by Bristol Drugs Project to employ an Apprenticeship Leader and provide five organic apprenticeship placements each year.

Through these apprenticeships, we will support clients in retraining and developing new skills for the horticultural industry, (where there is currently a big skills gap), with a view to helping them back into employment.

The Farm's contract initially runs until March 2016. Full details are still being worked out, but we will soon be appointing an Apprenticeship Leader.

 

Last year's terrible harvest and our call for financial support earlier this year now seem a dim and distant memory. We thank you all for supporting us through those tough times and we welcome you to share in the exciting journey that we will be embarking on in the coming months.

As a new and developing social enterprise, there are still many challenges we face (almost daily!). So, receiving this new funding is wonderful news as it will help us towards becoming a sustainable business into the future.