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 £2,000 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.