Community Spaces at Risk Fund
The Community Spaces at Risk Fund is Mayor Sadiq Khan’s £750,000 fund to protect grassroots cultural centres, social clubs, youth, education and other spaces that are locally rooted and critical for supporting vulnerable groups during the pandemic. Many of these community hubs deliver a range of activities to tackle isolation, support mental health and resilience and provide essential local services, but they are under financial pressure when they are needed most.
Delivered through a partnership between the Mayor’s Culture at Risk Office and Locality, the fund provides one-to-one specialist business and property advice, direct support and – when all other routes are exhausted – small and medium grants across two waves (up to £10,000 and up to £25,000 respectively) to help local community organisations protect at-risk spaces.
The fund is now closed.
London’s grassroots and civic organisations have been on the frontlines of this pandemic, helping to support the most vulnerable in our communities.
From feeding those in need; to tackling loneliness and isolation, they’ve been a lifeline for countless Londoners.
But worryingly, many of these groups are now under threat from the financial fallout of COVID-19.
That’s why I’m proud to announce today the first wave of funding from my brand-new Community Spaces at Risk Fund, which will help to protect dozens of cultural centres, youth clubs and community spaces across our city.
The £750,000 fund will be key to London’s recovery, supporting those spaces that are led by – and serving – the communities who’ve been hardest hit by this crisis.
Spaces like the Pepperpot Centre in Ladbroke Grove, the Suvai Deaf East Community in Redbridge, and the iconic Hackney Empire.
So, as we expand this programme, please find out more if you think a community organisation you run, or know, might be eligible for future support.
Supported organisations
The Mayor has awarded £600,000 in emergency and recovery grants to 60 grassroots community organisations, which have been hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. A further 41 organisations have received one-to-one advice and business support to help overcome the impacts of COVID-19.
Forty-six per cent of the spaces receiving support are in the 20 per cent most deprived areas in England, and 75 per cent are led by underrepresented groups, including Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, LGBTQ+ communities, Deaf and disabled people, and women’s-led groups.
Location: Westminster
Funding allocated: £275
Abbey Community Association supports more than 200 Westminster-based voluntary and community organisations to deliver their services by providing funding, governance, partnership and other relevant information and advice.
Bangladeshi Parents and Carers Association
Location: Tower Hamlets
Funding: £6,250
Bangladeshi Parents and Carers Association is a voluntary organisation working with people with disabilities.
Location: Bexley
Funding allocated: £4,400
Bexley Deaf Group is a local charity supporting 24,000 Deaf and hard of hearing people in the London Borough of Bexley.
Location: Brent
Funding allocated: £12,500
Brent Indian Association seeks to support and develop social care and educational projects for elderly women and youth from the Indian community.
Location: Hackney
Funding allocated: £13,600
A user-led organisation supporting people with disabilities to obtain the services they need to live independently and with dignity.
Location: Brent
Funding allocated: £5,000
A community-led library based in Brent.
Croydon Youth Theatre Organisation
Location: Croydon
Funding allocated: £550
The theatre provides opportunities for young people aged 13 to 21 to develop skills and build confidence through workshops, projects and theatre productions.
Location: Kensington and Chelsea
Funding allocated: £12,376
The Dalgarno Trust works with the local communities offering a wide range of activities, projects and services that promote health, wellbeing and inclusion.
Location: Ealing
Funding allocated: £7,550
Dementia Concern supports people with dementia and their carers to live as independently as possible.
Location: Southwark
Funding allocated: £7,020
The organisation works to empower African men and women suffering from HIV and AIDS to feel confident to discuss and seek support from experts and help diminish the stigma attached to this condition.
Location: Croydon
Funding allocated: £14,000
The Family Centre's mission is to support and strengthen families and children so they can improve the health, educational, social and employment aspects of their lives.
Freedom’s Ark Community Church
Location: Haringey
Funding allocated: £25,000
A community-run food hub established by Freedom’s Ark Church to help combat food waste and hunger.
Golden Opportunity Skills and Development (GOS&D)
Location: Ealing
Funding allocated: £19,400
Golden Opportunity Skills and Development help build a vibrant and equal society where everyone has the opportunity to flourish.
Goldsmiths Community Association
Location: Lewisham
Funding allocated: £12,750
The Goldsmiths Community Association aims to work in collaboration with local people to support a healthy, connected and thriving community.
Location: Kingston upon Thames
Funding allocated: £9,248
The aim of Growbaby is to provide new and second-hand baby clothes and equipment (up to 5 years), completely free of charge, to anyone who needs it.
Hammersmith Community Gardens Association
Location: Hammersmith and Fulham
Funding allocated: £25,000
Hammersmith Community Gardens Association (HCGA) is a local environmental charity who manage several community gardens in Hammersmith and Fulham.
Hammersmith and Fulham
Funding allocated: £7,242
Hammersmith and Fulham Mencap provides independent advocacy and support to people with learning disabilities of all ages and their carers living in Hammersmith and Fulham.
Harold Wood Neighbourhood Centre
Location: Havering
Funding allocated: £12,000
A fully functional community center managed by a committee of volunteers, offering hiring rooms and space to 27 local community groups and businesses.
Location: Hackney
Funding allocated: £2,000
Hoxton Hall is a performance arts theatre and community centre in the Hoxton area of Shoreditch.
Location: Haringey
Funding: £3,000
A multi award winning charity encouraging, educating and empowering women promoting integration and preventing extremism and hate crime.
Kennington Association (Lollard Street Adventure Playground)
Location: Lambeth
Funding: £9,679
Kennington Association is the independent local charity that manages Lollard Street Adventure Playground in Lambeth.
Location: Hammersmith and Fulham
Funding allocated: £17,000
A community hub that supports ethnic minority residents in Shepherd's Bush to run educational trainings and upskilling classes for the local residences to help them build confidence and improve quality of life.
Lewisham Irish Community Centre
Location: Lewisham
Funding allocated: £1,950
The Lewisham Irish Community Centre is a registered charity established to relieve poverty, sickness, and distress.
The Limes Community and Children's Centre
Location: Waltham Forest
Funding allocated: £13,500
The Limes Community and Children's Centre is a fully inclusive, safe space for children and young people to play, learn and develop.
Location: Haringey
Funding: £7,500
Markfield is an inclusive community hub in Haringey.
Location: Camden
Funding allocated: £11,284
The Mary Ward Legal Centre provides free, independent advice to people who live and work in London to help them access their legal rights and entitlements.
Middle Park Community Centre Limited
Location: Greenwich
Funding allocated: £2,000
Based in Eltham, the Middle Park Community Centre provides a wealth of activities, support and information for the whole community, in a friendly and caring environment.
Location: Hammersmith and Fulham
Funding allocated: £13,500
Minaret Community Centre is a locally rooted community centre working across communities and providing educational support, venue hire, as well as arts and cultural activities.
Location: Lambeth
Funding allocated: £16,800
Oasisplay is a local charity that runs three different and unique facilities for children and young people in Stockwell, London.
Location: Tower Hamlets
Funding allocated: £8,000
Osmani Trust is a youth and community organisation based in Tower Hamlets.
Location: Waltham Forest
Funding allocated: £19,250
Location: Newham
Funding allocated: £4,400
Skills Enterprise is an innovative community organisation in East London, supporting local residents to learn new skills, improve their health and wellbeing and find employment.
Somali Youth Development Resource Centre
Location: Camden
Funding allocated: £25,000
Somali Youth Development Resource Centre (SYDRC) is a youth-led organisation providing activities and services for young people living in Camden.
Location: Wandsworth
Funding:
South West London Law Centres helps people on low incomes across south-west London to understand and defend their rights.
St Michael and All Angels Parochial Church Council
Location: Hackney
Funding allocated: £25,000
This Victorian church has been servicing the community for 135 years.
Turkish Cypriot Community Association (TCCA)
Location: Haringey
Funding allocated: £13,709
William Morris Community Centre
Location: Waltham Forest
Funding allocated: £7,232
The William Morris Community Centre has been providing community space and resources for the residents of Waltham Forest since 1987.
198 Contemporary Arts and Learning Ltd
Location: Lambeth
198 Contemporary Arts and Learning is a centre for visual arts, education and creative enterprise.
Location: Newham
African Health Policy Network works with Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities to lessen the impacts of health inequalities and challenge intersecting issues of stigma, marginalisation, isolation, poverty, discrimination and racism.
Location: Brent
Ansar Youth Project (AYP) is a social inclusion project based in the London borough of Brent, and works to target young people from ethnic minorities and/or disadvantaged backgrounds.
Location: Islington
Artbox London works with people with learning disabilities to create, exhibit and sell their artwork.
Asian People's Disability Alliance Limited
Location: Brent
Asian People's Disability Alliance is a grassroots, user-led organisation based in Brent.
Chinese National Healthy Living Centre
Location: Westminster
The Centre was founded in 1987 to reduce health inequality in the Chinese community, and to offer a positive and holistic approach to healthy living.
Location: Barnet
CommUNITY Barnet is the umbrella organisation for the local voluntary and community sector (VCS) in Barnet.
Location: Haringey
Community Cook Up brings communities together, to cook and eat healthy food.
Elimhouse Community Association
Location: Southwark
Peckham centre for the elderly which provides leisure time actives and day time community care.
Foundation for Women's Health Research and Development (FORWARD)
Location: Hammersmith and Fulham
FORWARD is the African women-led organisation working to end violence against women and girls.
Hackney Chinese Community Services Association Ltd
Location: Hackney
Hackney Chinese Community Services Association has been serving the local East and South East Asian community since 1985.
Hillingdon Somali Women's Group
Location: Hillingdon
Hillingdon Somali Women's group provides services to Somali women and their families.
Hounslow Asian & African Youth Association (HAAYA)
Location: Hounslow
HAAYA is a youth charity supporting young people in West London since 2002.
Hounslow Multi-Cultural Centre
Location: Hounslow
Hounslow Multi-Cultural Centre is at the forefront of serving the multi ethnic community of London Borough of Hounslow.
Katherine Low Settlement Limited
Location: Wandsworth
Katherine Low Settlement is a multi-purpose charity that has been serving the communities of Battersea and Wandsworth since 1924.
Location: Lewisham
Lewisham Youth Theatre provides free participatory theatre activities to young people aged 8 to 24.
Meanwhile Gardens Community Association
Location: Kensington and Chelsea
Meanwhile Gardens is a community garden situated on the border of North Kensington and Westminster.
Location: Waltham Forest
The Mill is a community centre based in Walthamstow.
Muslim Association of Nigeria UK
Location: Southwark
The Old Kent Road Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre is home to London's oldest Nigerian Muslim community.
Location: Westminster
Paddington Arts is a Youth Arts organisation committed to developing talent and creativity in the community.
The Pentecostal City Mission Church (Willesden)
Location: Hammersmith and Fulham
The Church works with the community to relieve sickness and financial hardship and to promote and preserve good health.
Location: Tower Hamlets
Real has been helping people with disabilities based in Tower Hamlets for over twenty years.
Location: Tower Hamlets
Social Ark works with talented and resilient young people from under-resourced East London communities to use their lived experiences to develop social businesses of their own.
Women's Health and Family Services (WHFS)
Location: Tower Hamlets
WHFS works for equal access to healthcare for disadvantaged women and their families in East London.
Location: Greenwich
Funding allocated: £10,000
The artFix Circle is a community arts centre designing participatory artistic and well-being activities that inspire users to express themselves creatively.
Location: Hammersmith and Fulham
Funding allocated: £10,000
Bishop Creighton House is a community centre with 112-year history helping disadvantaged and marginalised people in West London to live independent lives.
Location: Islington
Funding allocated: £900
CHOICES Islington offers confidential and impartial counselling sessions for women and their partners facing an unplanned pregnancy.
Disablement Association Hillingdon
Location: Hillingdon
Funding allocated: £4,400
DASH provides advice, support and activities that help people with disabilities to take control of their lives and become more independent and confident.
East African Education Foundation
Location: Barking and Dagenham
Funding allocated: £10,000
East African Education Foundation supports users in accessing quality education that will allow them to improve their quality of life.
Location: Merton
Funding allocated: £10,000
Ethnic Minority Centre has provided support to victims of domestic abuse for nearly 40 years and delivers a programme of activities to empower single parents.
Location: Redbridge
Funding allocated: £6,480
Free Your Mind CIC provides a peer-led service of trained professionals with lived experience that has been tackling the increasing numbers of children and young people affected by witnessing domestic violence.
Location: Hackney
Funding allocated: £10,000
Gahu Dramatic Arts’s aim is to promote, teach and preserve African and African-Caribbean traditional cultures through music, drama, drumming, dance and storytelling.
Location: Hackney
Funding allocated: £10,000
Hackney Empire is providing online arts engagement and support to young people facing isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.
Hornsey Vale Community Association
Location: Haringey
Funding allocated: £10,000
The Association is volunteer-led and has managed Hornsey Vale Community Centre since 1991. This lively community hub offers a range of social and wellbeing-focussed activity, including mental health support, an elders lunch project and holiday clubs for disabled young people.
Location: Havering
Funding allocated: £10,000
Hope4Havering assists people who are homeless or at the risk of homelessness by providing housing, meals, counselling, support and advice and education to help them integrate into their local community and improve their conditions in life.
Indoamerican Refugee and Migrant Organisation
Location: Lambeth
Funding allocated: £10,000
Indoamerican Refugee and Migrant Organisation is a community-led organisation that supports Latin American refuges and migrants with tools and information in an empowering process to build secure, independent, and integrated lives in the UK.
Location: Lewisham
Funding allocated: £4,400
IRIE! delivers education, performance, training and community programmes through dance, operating out of and managing Brixton's iconic Moonshoot Centre.
Location: Barnet
Funding allocated: £10,000
Larches Trust has been operating for over 25 years, providing employment skills training and other forms of support and empowerment to people with learning disabilities, autism or Asperger’s syndrome aimed at realising their potential.
Location: Barnet
Funding allocated: £10,000
Living Way Ministries is a faith-based organisation that supports low-income and migrant communities in and around Grahame Park estate in Collindale.
Location: Hammersmith & Fulham
Funding allocated: £10,000
Minaret Community Centre is a locally rooted community centre working across communities and providing educational support, venue hire, as well as arts and cultural activities.
Location: Redbridge
Funding allocated: £8,000
One Place East is a voluntary organisation supporting people with disabilities, people with lived experience of mental health problems, people with learning disabilities, people with sensory and physical impairments, carers, and those with dementia.
Location: Waltham Forest
Funding allocated: £3,900
The charity’s mission is to help local families access food.
Location: Southwark
Funding allocated: £10,000
Southwark Pensioners Centre supports older people to enjoy healthier, independent and more active lives, in touch with each other and their communities.
Location: Redbridge
Funding allocated: £10,000
Suvai is a multi-generational café and social hub that support the inclusion and empowerment of the Deaf community across London, reducing isolation and increasing wellbeing.
Location: Enfield
Funding allocated: £4,400
Supporting over 1,500 individuals a year, Samafal Families Association offers specialist training, adult education, employment and advocacy services for Black, Asian and ethnic minority women to help overcome language and cultural barriers.
Uganda Community Relief Association
Location: Haringey
Funding allocated: £10,000
Uganda Community Relief Association is a user-led, pan-London charity operating from the Selby Centre for over 25 years, serving refugees and asylum seekers.
Location: Greenwich
Funding allocated: £4,900
OneSpace is a community centre and a café that serves Kidbrooke Village in South East London.
Location: Kensington & Chelsea
Funding allocated: £10,000
The Pepperpot Centre provides comprehensive, age-friendly culturally specific activities for over 50-year-olds from African and Caribbean communities, working to tackle loneliness, depression and homelessness through education, fitness and nutritious food.
Location: Westminster
Abbey Community Association supports more than 200 Westminster-based voluntary and community organisations to deliver their services by providing funding, governance, partnership and other relevant information and advice.
Location: Tower Hamlets
Age UK East supports the voice, influence and contribution of older people across East London.
Location: Haringey
The Antwerp Arms became North London’s first Community Pub in 2015, serving community in an area experiencing high levels of economic deprivation.
Bostall Library Community Group
Location: Bexley
A community library supporting people with dementia, children, and vulnerable groups.
Bromley Experts by Experience CIC
Location: Bromley
Bromley Experts by Experience is a user-led organisation for the Deaf community, people with disabilities and carers in Bromley.
Covent Garden Dragon Hall Trust
Location: Camden
Covent Garden Dragon Hall Trust is a registered charity, and a community space supporting local residents by providing them with opportunities for social, educational and recreational activities.
Ealing Community Resource Centre Limited
Location: Ealing
The Ealing Community Resource Centre is a base for more than a dozen Ealing charities.
Location: Enfield
Enfield Clubhouse aims to help people with the most severe and enduring mental health problems such as schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder (or manic depression), psychotic depression and anxiety disorders find and sustain meaningful work, social lives and supportive relationships.
Location: Brent
Granville Community Kitchen is a culturally diverse community food hub, offering food centred activities, services, education and training that is accessible, family friendly and open to all.
Location: Waltham Forest
House Of Rainbow is an inclusive and affirming religious community open and welcome to all people including the LGBTI community.
Location: Southwark
InSpire’s mission is to build the confidence, life skills and aspirations of Walworth residents to enable individuals and families living in the local area to thrive.
K.O.C.A Community Projects
Location: Tower Hamlets
K.O.C.A Community Projects is a community martial arts centre helping to empower their local community and provide a safe space for people to participate in sports.
Organisation of Young Africans (OYA)
Location: Barnet
OYA provides supplementary education for African and Afro-Caribbean secondary school students aged 10 to 16, covering the subjects of English, Maths, and Science.
Location: Hackney
Sistah Space is a community-based non-profit initiative created to bridge the gap in domestic abuse services for African heritage women and girls.
Location: Lambeth
Springfield Community Flat has been operating on the Springfield Estate in Lambeth for the last 25 years providing services aimed at empowering community members and reducing inequality.
Location: Kensington & Chelsea
Venture Community Association runs an inclusive programme of activities, courses and events for residents in the North Kensington area.
Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme
If you have a space which is at risk of being lost – apply to the Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme to receive direct advocacy, training, and business feasibility and continuity support.
Useful resources
- sign up to the Mayor's Culture newsletter to find out about further opportunities for funding and support
- for advice, guidance and support schemes available to cultural and community organisations, please visit our resources page
- for more information on current funding opportunities available to support communities and civil society organisations in London, please visit City Hall's community grants and funding page
- locality is the national membership network for community organisations. The network brings together over 1300 members united by a belief in the power of community and a shared goal to help communities thrive. Find out more about Locality Membership Network.
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