Inclusive communities

The West Midlands is one of the most diverse regions in the country, home to many communities of different cultures and faiths.

The legacy fund is investing around £20m into ensuring that locally-led projects across the region can benefit from the legacy of the Commonwealth Games.

There are three main routes that organisations accessed the funding:

Inclusive Communities Grants Programme

Originally there was £9 million available as part of the Inclusive Communities Grants Programme, and this was increased to £11.8 million from additional funding from the government. Organisations across the West Midlands could bid for funding to support programmes and projects valuable to local people.

The fund has three key missions at its heart:

1. Bringing people together – supporting projects that connect communities, people and places.

2. Strengthening our communities - capacity building across education, voluntary, community and faith sectors.

3. Telling our story – continuing to raise the profile of the West Midlands through the legacy of the Commonwealth Games.

Projects focussed on one or more of three key areas:

• Sports and physical activity

• Mental health and wellbeing

• Arts, culture and creativity.

There were over 1 400 applications from organisations across the region and the total of all these applications was over £74 million. Community decision making panels - consisting of local people who know the sports, arts and mental health sectors and local communities helped to decide on the successful organisations.

All of the £11.8 million of funding was shared out with 388 organisations across the region.

There were four kinds of grant funding that groups could apply for:

• 197 grants have been awarded for Small projects up to £15,000

• 141 grants have been awarded for Medium projects up to £75,000

• 14 grants have been awarded for Large projects up to £300,000.

• 36 grants have been awarded for Small Works grants of up to £100,000 for minor renovation works e.g., refitting a community kitchen or resurfacing a multi-use games area.

All the projects across the region finished by 31 December 2024. Evaluation is now taking place and there will be a report published – available on this website – at the end of March 2025.

£11.8 million awarded from the Inclusive Communities Fund | Heart of England Community Foundation (heartofenglandcf.co.uk)

Trailblazer Programmes - United By 2022 Charity

United By 2022 was awarded £5 million from the legacy fund to continue to engage with people from underserved and overlooked communities across the West Midlands, widening the impact they had in the build-up to last year’s Games.

Trailblazer programmes include:

• Critical Mass, an inclusive dance and movement programme;

• Gen22, a youth social action programme, aimed at empowering young people aged 16-24 to make real change in their own communities;

• Bring the Power, which promotes more opportunities for people with disabilities, and to get more women and girls participating in Games-linked physical activity;

• Social Value, a private and third sector partnership to financially support grassroots organisations; Volunteers’ Collective, a region-wide website to promote volunteering opportunities.

For more information visit United by 2022’s website:

Social Economy Growth Programme

£2 million is being invested in helping to grow the scale and impact that social enterprise, community-owned businesses, trading Charities, Cooperatives and other not-for-personal profit organisations have in the region.

The collective term for this is the Social Economy.

The investment from the legacy fund, together with £150,000 from the West Midlands Combined Authority and £150,000 from Power to Change funding, will start the process of doubling the size and impact of this sector. The investment will provide:

A specialist business support programme for +160 social economy organisations aimed at building their business skills and confidence to enable growth and sustainability.
Seed funding to enable eight place-based cluster developments which will provide the financial resources to enable a Social Economy lead organisation to develop an action plan and investment strategy to address local social issues and create a sustainable circular economy.
Social economy drive 2023 – a series of events, across the region this November 13 to 17, highlighting the products and services that provide the profits that Social Economy organisations use to tackle social or environmental issues.

Speak with our Social Economy team for more information.