A keynote fund for black and ethnic minority-led charities has been “swamped” in applications, one of its organisers has said.
High demand means that fewer than one in 10 of the small charities applying to the £1m fund will be successful, according to Yvonne Field, chief executive of the Ubele Initiative.
The Ubele Initiative is co-ordinating the Phoenix Way, the first phase of which opened at the beginning of April. It will make grants of up to £20,000 and builds on the work of the Phoenix Fund, which made emergency grants to BAME-led charities during Covid-19.
Both schemes were established in response to research during the pandemic which found that small, BAME charities were more exposed to financial trouble than other organisations and often frozen out of mainstream funding.
Field was speaking this week on the latest episode of the Third Sector podcast, released today.
She said: “Within the first week [after opening to applications] we had over 150 applications coming in. So we know we are going to be swamped.
“We were swamped last time with the Phoenix [Fund] and knew, generally speaking, there was about a one in 10 chance of getting funding for each application. But I think it will probably be slightly higher than that this time. It is highly competitive.”
The scheme has faced long delays since it was first announced nearly two years ago. Internal disputes turned the process into “a real nightmare”, according to one person involved.
The National Lottery Community Fund initially pledged to back the scheme with £50m over five years but the Phoenix Way has opened without that cash.
Field told the podcast: “It has been quite a struggle and it took pressure from a number of quarters [to get it started], not just from the Phoenix partners.”
She did not name any organisations but said that relations had become so strained that the Ubele Initiative even considered walking away from the project.
She said that her organisation “had been prepared to say no” to continuing the project, adding: “That was hard – really, really hard. It is hard to walk away from resources for your community.”
You can listen to the full interview with Yvonne Field and NPC’s Sarah Denislow on the latest Third Sector podcast.