Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults - Year 4 - Monitoring and reporting summary

Executive Summary

Key Findings – Reach of Funded Projects:

• Number of awards: 1,462 grants have been awarded in Year 4 which has resulted in funding for 1,446 organisations. This means 6,192 awards have been made across the first four years of the Fund.
• Balance of new and existing projects: Of the project data returned, 41% were new projects, 56% were existing projects, and data was not available for 3% of projects.
• Small grants: Overall, most grants (56%) were for £10,000 or less. 35% were for grants between £10,000 and £20,000, 10% were for between £20,000 and £50,000, with only four grants (0.3%) over £50,000. Additionally, Capital funding was awarded to 109 projects. The majority of awards (70%) were awarded between £1,000 and £5,000 with 23% receiving between £250 and £999, with the remaining projects (7%) receiving less than £250. Smaller organisations: The majority of grants (87%) were allocated to either small or medium sized organisations.
• Types of projects: It is clear that a diverse range of projects are being supported. The most common types of projects being funded are: Social or group activity (511); Peer support and mentoring (223); Counselling or Therapeutic (213); and Sport or physical activity (124).

Target groups and priority issues:

• Targeting: 24% of projects were aimed at general population, whilst 51% were open to all but with a focus on particular target groups. 24.2% were aimed directly at particular target groups.
• The most commonly targeted groups were: People with a long term health condition or disability (549); People facing socio economic disadvantage (481); Older people aged 50+ (385); People experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage (333); and People with diagnosed mental illness (287).
• The least commonly targeted groups were: People from a minority ethnic background (157); Refugees and those with no recourse to public funds (84); and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender and Intersex LGBTI+ communities (77).
• An additional 118 (8.3%) identified targeting projects at “other” groups. Unpaid carers were the single largest group within “other” (17%).

Priority themes:

Overall, there is very strong coverage across the fund priorities, with social isolation and loneliness projects (1,021), and tackling poverty and inequality (608) the most prominent. Suicide prevention is the least common theme to be adopted with 324 having this as a sole focus, although many included this as a shared theme.