Speak out Speke

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About the approach

This project hopes to stimulate community activity by using a social Challenge Prize, awarding innovative ideas that have the capacity to achieve sustainable change.

The Challenge Prize awards will be based on local priorities. Local Neighbourhood Days will be used to engage local people in generating ideas for change at a local level, with local residents (particularly those that are new to community activity) invited to say how they could encourage community responses to local priorities. The best ideas will receive seed funding and they will have an opportunity to progress their ideas in a series of workshops. Projects with the highest potential for creating change will receive an award of £20,000.

The approach has been developed to ensure that people new to community activity will have access to high levels of support. It also offers a 'bottom up' approach to identifying community priorities in order to increase the likelihood that people will feel motivated to get involved in making changes that matter to them. The Challenge Prize format, which is quite distinct from a traditional grants programme, is new to this community and has the potential to generate higher levels of curiosity and interest.

About the organisations

The Lead: Community Foundation for Merseyside

Established in 1999, Community Foundation for Merseyside is a local grant maker belonging to a network of community foundations. As one of the UK's largest community foundations, it connects donors to the community by distributing grants to grassroots groups operating in Merseyside. In the past 11 years they have distributed almost £40,000,000 to over 8,000 community groups and voluntary organisations on behalf of 60 donors and funding partners.

Local Partner: South Liverpool Housing

South Liverpool Housing (SLH) is a registered social landlord with 3,600 properties in the Speke, Garston and Woolton areas of Liverpool. SLH is committed to creating places in which people want to live by tackling anti-social behaviour, engaging young people, building skills and finding innovative ways of involving people in improving their community. SLH has an in-depth knowledge of the neighbourhood of Speke as well as strong relationships with community, voluntary and public sector organisations working in the area.

About the neighbourhood

With six Council wards, South Liverpool is home to 88,600 people and is one of the most economically diverse neighbourhoods in the City. Speke forms part of the Speke/ Garston ward. It provides a home to 10,000 residents and contains one of the largest housing estates in England. The geographical location of the neighbourhood means that it is isolated from surrounding areas, and although it has major industrial and commercial sectors, levels of worklessness are high (almost one in three). It is an area with very little community activity and few voluntary sector organisations.