The Micro Community Investment Fund is provided and administered by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland.
The funding is intended to provide investment for community initiatives making a difference in towns and villages across Northern Ireland through projects that focus on improving at least one of the following:
- Financial wellbeing.
- Physical wellbeing.
- Mental wellbeing.
- The fund will support new or existing community initiatives that have a particular focus on addressing the challenges people are facing around the rising cost of living.
Grants of up to ÂŁ2,000 are available.
The funding can be used for projects and activities such as:
- Projects promoting inclusion and belonging, particularly to enhance the physical and mental wellbeing of the local community.
- Projects that strengthen the capacity of individuals to engage with a range of available digital services in order to help manage their money in a digital age.
- Projects that enhance people’s financial knowledge through financial education programmes.
- Projects promoting physical activity which uses the assets located within the area.
- Projects that improve the ability of individuals to access mental health and wellbeing services either i) directly, through the provision of support or ii) indirectly, through education/awareness raising programmes.
- Projects that encourage the active participation of individuals in their own mental wellbeing. Projects should aim to promote increased independence/resilience in relation to an individual’s mental health.
- The funding can support both new and existing activities.
Priority will be given to projects that:
- Focus on the positive contribution of people within the community and support the challenges that people face in ligt of the rising cost of living.
- Enable active participation of a community in decision-making and involvement in making their community a better place to live in.
- Focus on the assets within the community which the project will use to make the community a better place to live in.
- Help get people engaged in taking community action where it has not happened before to make the community a better place to live in.
- Address more than one particular strand of wellbeing.