Case Study: BSWN's Capacity Building Support for CRF Project

Um, I'm from Black Southwest Network. We're a racial justice charity based in Bristol and we work across the Southwest, and in Bristol, uh, what we've done is work in partnership with the council, um, and agreed that we would supply kind of listening ear, um, support service. A critical friend, that sort of role, uh, to actively help organisations that had applied for the Community resilience fund, um, to help them with navigate the process of obtaining that funding and then implementing it, which is quite a challenging task for any organisation, but particularly small grassroots organisations with not a lot of internal capacity and um. And so I think the council did a good job of separating out who do we in principle want to support.

And so an expression of interest was asked for. And then, um. The technical aspects were, OK, timetable it, get us the quotations and so on, and so, um, In a way, they, they went with their principles and said, let's get the right people in the room.

Let's get the right organisations signed off. Yes, you're gonna get this grant. And then everything is subject to having the, the completed form, having the right quotations in place, having a comparison between, you know, builders that you're gonna use, so that you can make a fair decision based on.

Um, The work that's going to get done to a quality standard, and so, The people are not used to navigating all of that and so uh it can get really stressful. um, so another good decision was having an advisor. Um, it could have, you know, it was me for some of these organisations you've spoken to, um, but it could have been somebody else.

Another good decision. Was having some experts on board, like Wessel. To talk to about disability access, to Bristol Green Energy Network around energy efficiency, so there's lots of advice around, Uh, to help small organisations to make appropriate choices for their particular venue or facility or space.

Was there anything different or unique about the resilience fund? Application or process compared with other funding opportunities that you might have applied for. So did you, did you find it more clunky, difficult or easier and more straightforward? I found it difficult because I'm not used to writing grants. So I found it really difficult.

Like the only grant I got before that I think was like for 500 pounds for like a community grant. We've always, always, always been independent here. So I found it really difficult.

Yeah. Did you find the support was um on hand or was it difficult to get hold of people or I just say Sona with BSWN is my rock. Like she is my Sona if you're watching this.

I absolutely love you. Like literally, when I was like really down at times when it's getting too much, she picked me up. Like she has been absolutely amazing, um, like really amazing.

Um, Natalie as well, the SWN has been absolutely amazing. But Sona, you've been my. Uh, she's held me up.

She's kept me going. Excellent. I, I spoke to Sona, she knows her stuff.

She's, she's just amazing. Like I don't know what I would have done without her help and support. Then, uh, we needed to for the safety for the charity management, BSWN stepped in, and they were kind of guarantor or the recipients of the fund.

Uh, Bristol City Council was releasing to the fund to the BSWN. And BSW went to Bangladesh Association. We were weekly, uh, was sending the invoices to them.

What were the work was carried out. So we sent the invoice to the BSWN and BSWN released the fund or the bill to the builder. So 3 were were, it would have been, uh, comes to the Bangladesh Association, but because of the governance issue.

The council released the fund to the BSWN and the big, huge thanks to the management and the staff of the BSWN. Thank you to the community reporters, the organisations who shared their stories, and all of the residents, organisations, counsellors and staff who have been involved in building community resilience together with this fund.