Managing a community health grants programme to reach underserved communities

Funding community organisations to deliver care differently

People with mental health needs do not always require clinical support or statutory service input. Sometimes what makes the difference is practical help with benefits, someone to talk to, or support to re-learn everyday skills. Local community organisations are often best placed to offer these more innovative and holistic approaches to care.

CNWL NHS Foundation Trust wanted to test this through a Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) Alliance Model in the London Borough of Harrow. The model aimed to empower local organisations to deliver quality health and social care services by funding projects that develop community provision, provide practical responses to social crises, improve upstream prevention, and serve community members most underrepresented in services.

The Trust needed a partner who understood both granting and community engagement, and who could ensure the funding reached organisations with genuine connections to the communities they aimed to serve.

Challenges

Community grants programmes can sometimes struggle to reach the organisations best placed to deliver impact. Smaller, grassroots groups may lack the capacity to navigate complex application processes, while larger organisations may not have the community connections needed to reach underserved populations.

The Trust wanted to fund work with specific communities who often face barriers to accessing mainstream health services: LGBT people, older Asian women, and young Black men. Finding organisations with authentic relationships with these communities, and supporting them to deliver high-quality services, required a deliberate and proactive approach.

"We wanted to reach people who our data was telling us was falling through the gaps: young Black men, older Asian women, LGBT communities. Habitus helped us find organisations who already had those relationships and could deliver support in ways we couldn't." — Gail Burrell, Interim Borough Director Harrow, CNWL NHS Foundation Trust

What we did

We managed the community grants programme from end to end, using an iterative, learning approach throughout.

Proactive outreach and targeting: Rather than waiting for applications to arrive, we proactively identified and reached out to local organisations with genuine connections to the target communities. Through our extensive network of lived experience and peer support leadership, we sought out groups who could prove their ability to meaningfully connect with their communities and deliver on the Trust's requirements.

Making applications accessible: We redesigned the application process to remove barriers. We kept forms short and action-focused, replaced strict word limits with suggested limits to save time, offered video submissions as an alternative, and provided direct support to help organisations complete their applications.

Building capacity: We ran workshops to help potential applicants articulate their impact, building the capacity of smaller organisations to compete for funding. We embedded lived experience and community involvement at every stage, from the creation of the application process through to scoring and awarding.

Flexible, supportive contract management: We hosted fortnightly office hours where funded organisations could ask questions and get support. We introduced a "moment of the month" activity, capturing short reflections on wider impact, lessons learned, and things that would not get captured elsewhere. We provided consistent, easy-to-use measurement and data tools, and took on much of the reporting burden ourselves to free up organisations to focus on delivery.

Evaluation: We collected referral data fortnightly and conducted a micro evaluation to identify lessons learned for the charities, the funder, and to inform ongoing approaches.

The funded organisations

Three local organisations were funded to deliver community-based support for people with mental health needs. Referrals came from CNWL NHS services, Primary Care, and the Cove (a mental health crisis service delivered by Hestia Housing and Support).

Ignite Youth delivered benefits and advice support for young people up to age 25. Mental health youth advocates worked alongside young people to help them access welfare benefits, housing, and employment support. The project included a special provision for young Black men, addressing barriers that prevent them from engaging with support services.

My Yard delivered a befriending service for people who had become isolated due to crisis. Service users were matched with volunteer befrienders for at least weekly contact.

HAD (Harrow Association of Disabled People) delivered benefits advice and reablement support for people over 26. Reablement is time-limited, strengths-based support that helps people re-learn independent life skills such as shopping and cooking, building confidence and reducing dependence on services.

How we made a difference

By taking a proactive approach to identifying organisations and removing barriers from the application process, we ensured the funding reached groups with authentic community connections rather than simply those with the most polished applications.

The flexible, supportive approach to contract management meant funded organisations felt genuinely supported rather than burdened by reporting. The learning and reflection sessions created space for organisations to share what was working, adapt their approaches, and build their evidence base. This meant they came away not just with funding, but with stronger stories of impact they could use to sustain their programmes.

The services connected back into the NHS system through clear referral pathways, enabling residents to continue their recovery journey within the community while maintaining links to clinical support when needed.

Results

Our evaluation found three key outcomes:

The model contributed to community responses that decreased rates of social and mental health crises. Providing local organisations with funding to respond to emerging needs proved an effective way of reducing hospital admissions, unemployment, and social isolation. Voluntary sector organisations were effectively "buffering" community needs versus primary care service capacity.

Service users were linked to local community-based organisations, and collaboration between partners improved. There was evidence of improved collaboration between VCS organisations, educational settings, and NHS Trusts through the co-design of programmes. Ignite Youth, for example, co-designed a joint programme with CNWL Mental Health Trust combining their youth expertise with clinicians' specialist knowledge.

The model showed potential to reduce readmission to emergency departments. One young man supported by Ignite went from monthly hospital readmissions to just one in six months. Survey respondents from HAD's reablement service reported feeling listened to and supported, with only one stating they had accessed an emergency service since receiving support.

The evaluation demonstrated what is possible when granting is done with intention: proactively seeking out community expertise, removing barriers, building capacity, and creating the conditions for learning and collaboration. The model provides value for money through the additional services each charity offers beyond their funded remit, and has potential to alleviate pressure on NHS mental health services.

Gail Burrell, Interim Borough Director Harrow, CNWL NHS Foundation Trust: "The VCS Alliance Model showed us what's possible when we trust local organisations to deliver care in ways that make sense for their communities. The evaluation gave us confidence that this approach can reduce pressure on NHS services while improving outcomes for residents."

Habitus has experience managing community grants programmes that reach the organisations best placed to deliver impact. If you are looking to fund community health initiatives, build the capacity of grassroots organisations, or take a more intentional approach to granting, get in touch.