New Trust Website Promotes Civic Activism

The programme aims to give Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations the opportunity to experiment with innovative approaches to engaging people in decision-making processes that impact on their lives.

The Civic Activism website provides access to 18 in depth top tips shared by successful local and international projects, designed to help and inspire your organisation.

Four local case studies are also available, based on experiences shared by participants at a series of Ideas Generation workshops hosted by the Trust and facilitated by IISC and Helen McLaughlin across Northern Ireland in June 2014.

29 innovative tools have been brought together in a Civic Activism Toolkit. Interested VCSE organisations are being encouraged to try out one or more of the tools featured in the directory and grants are being made available to support this work.  

The application window will soon open for around 15 grants which the Trust will be awarding in spring 2015. Any VCSE organisation will be eligible to apply, whether working to influence decisions at a local or regional level.

Speaking on behalf of the Trust, Paul Braithwaite, Development and Implementation Officer, said: “Fundamentally, we are making this information easily accessible to support the nourishment of democracy in Northern Ireland from the grassroots up.

"We want to encourage more people to have a say over the major decisions that impact on their everyday lives and through this Toolkit and Programme the Trust wants to help reinvigorate democratic engagement, with the VCSE sector as a key intermediary.

“Having an easy to understand, online platform is absolutely vital to supporting greater engagement and the website we have in place gives instant access to some of the best tips, case studies and tools we have found after extensive research".

For more information contact Paul Braithwaite on pbraithwaite@communityfoundationni.org