About Strengthening Voices

The Strengthening the Voice of the Black and Minority Ethnic Third Sector project aims to develop, strengthen and integrate the Black and Minority Ethnic Third Sector across England. The project is funded under the Big Lottery Fund’s BASIS programme, with additional support from the Commission for the Compact. The project will:

• Improve collaboration, communication and peer support between Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) infrastructure organisations, including national, regional, local and specialist support agencies and as a result will help ensure better support for BME third sector organisations and social enterprises

• Increase access to, and effectiveness in, policy making processes that affect BME communities throughout England

• Improve the understanding, awareness and use amongst local, regional and specialist BME organisations of the Compact

• Strengthen relations between BME-led infrastructure organisations and the range of mainstream infrastructure organisations, leading to better support for BME groups and social enterprises.

To learn more about the project please contact Nandini Das, Networks & Communications Officer on 020 7843 6131.

Who will the project impact?

The project will assist organisations working in the third sector including charities and social enterprises, whose work is largely focused on meeting the needs of BME communities. These organisations already play a central role in delivering support and services to BME communities and engage with groups which mainstream service providers are often unable to reach.

BME Infrastructure organisations have historically faced a range of difficulties in maintaining or expanding the support services they provide due to a lack of resources, training, planning and the fact that they are less well networked into mainstream voluntary and community sector infrastructure bodies.

This project will aim to reach BME-led organisations from national, regional, sub-regional, local and specialist infrastructure organisations, which will be better able to serve the individual organisations with which they work, to the individual organisations themselves.

The goal of the project is to make the benefits of the project available to as many of the estimated 15 – 17,000 BME-led organisations across England as possible.

Find out more about our Partners and Funders.