Support & Fundraising
Chelmsford CVS can help you with information and support on all aspects of setting up and running a voluntary or community group, including choosing a legal structure or insurance, fundraising, voluntary sector management, marketing, managing your group’s money, drawing up policies and best practice procedures.
To our Membership, we routinely offer out the latest and most essential knowledge and best practice, via in-person and online training.
Verified Online Resources
We spend time researching some of the best free resources online, available below to support you in thinking through the practical steps and planning your action.
Access their Help & Guidance pages to study all the basics.
Check out their Small Group Support and Helpdesk.
Join a member to access discounted training, and additional resources.
A collated website of resources or people and organisations who are passionate about their communities. Whether setting up a foodbank or planning finances, here is a set of resources you can trust, curated by leading VCS organisations.
Social enterprises are businesses which trade for a social or environmental purpose and SE UK are a membership body. Their website gives some examples of Social Enterprise and outlines the principles and legal structures for social business.
For local business support.
Documents, Templates, and Knowledge Base
We have a range of documents, information sheets, books, templates, policy outlines, and procedural guides for you to access, as well as a large Voluntary Sector Library of published books.
If you are seeking something specific, please contact us.
Prefer to Talk Things Through?
We pride ourselves on our one-to-one, personalised advice and support. We’re a small team, but expert.
If you are involved with a local charity or community group – or thinking of setting one up – please get in touch. If we don’t know the answer, we probably know somebody who does, and we will always treat anything you say to us as confidential.
Fundraising
We are able offer charities and community groups within the Chelmsford District help with your fundraising.
Whether your voluntary organisation needs just a few hundred pound or thousands of pounds, this is the best place to start. Raising funds is a very daunting task with approximately only one in ten funding applications being successful! We don’t give out money or write the application for you, but we can give free access to tools, skills, tips and techniques that you can use to significantly improve your chances of fundraising success.
Funding help sheets and publications are available in our library that you can borrow, and we feature funding opportunities in our quarterly newsletter to CVS members. If you are struggling to achieve success with your funding applications please do call us on 01245 351888.
My Funding Central is a subscription website for charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. They list hundreds of funding and finance opportunities. Click here to view their website.
We can offer free online access to over 4,000 trusts and foundations. If you would like to book an appointment to access this software please contact us on 01245 351888.
For the past five years the Centre has been funded by Big Lottery to offer intensive one-to-one fundraising support which has directly facilitated local groups to raise in excess of £1.5 million of external funding. This funding has now ended but you can read more about the successes of the project here.