The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK Government’s Levelling Up agenda and provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025.

The fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills.

Funding opportunities for community groups

North Lanarkshire’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund investment plan includes the opportunity for several interventions to be delivered by community groups through a Challenge Fund process. Our Communities Committee approved the first tranche of these Challenge Funds at its 21 August 2016 meeting.

The key ambition of these new funds is to achieve the following objectives:

• Strengthening our social fabric and fostering a sense of local pride and belonging, through investment in activities that enhance physical, cultural and social ties and access to amenities, such as community infrastructure and local green space, and community-led projects.
• Building resilient, healthy and safe neighbourhoods, through investment in quality places that people want to live, work, play and learn in, through targeted improvements to the built and natural environment innovative approaches to crime prevention.

In addition to new funds being available to community groups, communities will be encouraged to participate in the decision-making for these Challenge Funds. This will include opportunities for participatory budgeting and local short-term working groups.

The Challenge Funds that we've launched to date are:

• VolunteerNL

Volunteer NL provides grants from £500 to £3000 to support and promote the development and enhancement of volunteering and volunteering opportunities.

• Community Empowerment NL

Small grant funding for community projects that will contribute towards the delivery of North Lanarkshire’s 9 Locality Plans. Funding decisions will be determined by local people. 

• Community Asset Fund

A pilot funding programme to support community groups as they prepare a Community Asset Transfer request. Funds will contribute towards the costs of community engagement, feasibility studies, surveys, business plans and organisation capacity building. 

• Digital NL

Funding to provide investment in digital infrastructure for local community facilities. This fund is due to launch in early 2024.

Find out more about our Challenge Funds.