Third round of Community Ownership Fund to open

The Community Ownership Fund will be opening its third round on 30 August 2023.

The government will soon be opening the third round of its Community Ownership Fund, designed to help communities rescue and take control of treasured local assets such as sports clubs, music venues and historic buildings.

From this window, they will be increasing the amount of funding that all new applicants can bid for from £1million to £2million.

The government says this change has been made to ensure that assets which are important parts of the social fabric continue to play a central role in towns and villages across the UK.

These changes are explained in full in the updated prospectus, available on the gov.uk website.

Get support with your bid

• Interested groups can start their Community Ownership Fund application by submitting an expression of interest form at any time.
• Support and guidance from Locality and other organisations is available on the My Community website for anyone preparing an application.
• Local Trust can also help broker support with applications. Please feel free to get in touch with Alice on alice.calder@localtrust.org.uk.

Find and access funding: A community action plan

Our new action plan, developed in partnership with Stir to Action, includes top tips on how to write a successful funding bid, as well as how to communicate that success to your community.