A craft session at LilyAnne’s Wellbeing (Hartlepool)

Our founder director, Mark Ereira-Guyer, reflects on the successes of the National Lottery funded support programme delivered across the most deprived neighbourhoods of England

When we launched Nurturing Grassroots in March 2025, we set out to support at least 40 grassroots organisations and groups in our first year. 18 months on, we have provided dedicated organisational support to over 100 organisations in towns such as Birkenhead, Burnley, Barking, Grays, Middlesbrough, Stoke and Oldham. Remarkably, as part of Nurturing Grassroots we have worked with some 310 organisations overall across England.

That is not a number we went looking for. It is what happened when our wonderful infrastructure partners, local authorities and regional National Lottery officers kept sending grassroots organisations our way — as always, we found ourselves unwilling to turn anyone away. We can’t stop ourselves!.

Half time results - what we have done so far

Funded by the National Lottery's Reaching Communities programme, Nurturing Grassroots is our free, hands-on organisational development programme for grassroots organisations and CICs in some of the poorest neighbourhoods across four Lottery regions: Eastern, North-East, North-West and Midlands. In our first year of a three year programme that support breaks down as follows:

Dedicated organisational strengthening support: 101 (original target: 40)
One-to-one coaching with organisational leaders: 11 (original target: 8)
Group coaching and other workshops with organisational leaders: 187
Storytelling for Togetherness filmmaking and training: 209 (original target: 48)

So far, this has been delivered through two cohorts — 50 organisations from March to October 2025, and 51 from November 2025 to July 2026. We are still working with many organisations from both cohorts, especially in Hartlepool, Rochdale and Dagenham. It’s hard to stop, especially as business planning and fundraising decisions take considerable time.

Co-founder Natasha (right) with Nicole from B3: Bumps Births and Beginnings CIC (Thurrock)

Famously, our Nurturing Grassroots approach is all about learning by doing rather than training. We sit down with each organisation, agree up to three tangible outputs based on their most pressing challenges they are facing, and then co-produce them together: this could be an impact report, a funding bid, a community consultation a fundraising strategy or a business plan - the kind of outputs that help you through a funder's due diligence.

In practice that has looked like helping Blue Flamingo Community Hub CIC in Preston develop a fundraising strategy and submit a Postcode Lottery bid; supporting Beautiful New Beginnings CIC in Merseyside to get to grips with full cost recovery; working with Ubuntu Multi-Cultural Centre in Middlesbrough on monitoring, evaluation and an impact report; and guiding Powerhouse Community Network in Dagenham through budgeting, a beneficiary survey and a Reaching Communities application.

Associate Consultants working on the Nurturing Grassroots programme, Sadia (left) and Dana

Alongside the one-to-one work, we ran a full cycle of 'Our Time Together' group coaching for 35 grassroots leaders — sessions on leadership and wellbeing, belonging, radical honesty and values — plus further online workshops on lived experience, marketing, collaboration and social cohesion, benefiting 148 leaders. Eleven leaders were invited into six-session one-to-one coaching blocks with our specialist coach Dee Brecker.

And through a further grant uplift, we delivered six ‘Storytelling for Togetherness’ filmmaking workshops in Birkenhead, Middlesbrough, Rochdale, Burnley and Barking & Dagenham — teaching organisations basic film-making so they can tell their own stories of hope, connection and impact at a time when divisive narratives dominate. These films are now being shared on social media as part of a national, collaborative campaign. Find out more about that here.

Did it make a difference?

Well, from the exit surveys so far:

83% report their organisation's overall performance has improved and that they are in a stronger place
All respondents say they have gained new skills and knowledge that helped their organisation move forward
80% feel more confident understanding and demonstrating their impact
67% report an improved strategy, business plan or clearer organisational direction
Over two-thirds have gained new positive connections with likeminded people and organisations
100% of coaching participants felt their hopes for coaching were met, and all would recommend it

Co-founder Mark with Trevor at LilyAnne’s Wellbeing (Hartlepool)

In participants' own words:

"Having someone to review my grant applications was excellent – it helped me understand where I possess skill and what areas where I needed to develop confidence. I also worked with a mentoring coach which was absolutely phenomenal."
"I feel more confident and learned how I can centre myself in challenging circumstances."
"Coaching has helped me gain a lot of confidence in my relationships; I have learned to set a boundary and that it's OK to do that. It has helped me to be a better leader as well."

Sarah Robson of Da'aro Youth Project put it this way:

"Small organisations like us have very limited resources and we would not have been able to afford this level of advice and consultancy. Furthermore even if we had managed to find and pay for this type of support it would not have had the same value and effect. This is because the CST team understands our grassroots and holistic approach led by lived experience better than anyone."

We take all the feedback on board. Overwhelmingly, people wanted more: more time, more in-person sessions, more chances to network with others on the programme. In response we have built more group coaching and informal 'coffee morning' sessions into future cohorts.

What we’ve learned

We started Nurturing Grassroots 6 years ago, but it’s a constant evolution, based on what we learn.

When we asked leaders recently what was keeping them up at night, the answers were strikingly consistent: how to respond locally to the rise of the extreme far right and share positive stories that make a difference; how to recruit people — including trustees and directors — who genuinely share your values; the loneliness of leaving a difficult workplace to build something of your own and the struggle of increasing demand in a climate of reduced funding.

One reflection stayed with us. Leaders valued these sessions because the people in the room were not from their own area. That distance gave them permission to be honest — and pointed to a significant sense of isolation in their everyday working lives, made worse by remote working.

This is, we believe, the most challenging time imaginable for the sector, made considerably harder by rising community tensions and manufactured social polarisation. Grassroots organisations have the will to do more. What they do not always have is the capacity.

Join our September cohort

We are now recruiting 25 organisations for Cohort 3, starting in September 2026.

Nurturing Grassroots is completely free. It is for grassroots organisations and CICs led by and for communities facing poverty, discrimination and disadvantage, particularly across our four Lottery regions; the North East, North West, Midlands and the East of England.

To register, please complete our baseline survey and co-production and values statement and we will be in touch to arrange your initial consultation.

If the last year told us anything, it is that this support is needed far more widely than any of us anticipated. Can you afford not to apply?!

Find out more and apply

Alternatively get in touch with Mark for an informal chat (mark@civilsocietyconsulting.co.uk)

Half-time results: 18 months of our Nurturing Grassroots support programme and our next cohort is now open!