Different funders, Same fabulous results at recent Meet the Funders

A look into recent funder events, as well as a ones on the horizon!

We have recently held two very different Meet the Funder events. It really struck me, how different the funders were, but at the heart of it, the funding administrators who came to deliver the sessions, were heavily invested in local community organisations and keen to share any knowledge that would support them to a successful application.

The National Lottery Reaching Communities team

For such a daunting funder, both speakers from the team, Alice Irvine and Jenny Kelly, are genuinely so welcoming and friendly. I have known them for some years, and they remain consistent and steadfast in their approach to supporting Wirral organisations.

Community Foundation for Merseyside

Community Foundation for Merseyside's Programme Manager David Costelloe came to deliver their Meet the Funder session last month. This was the first time that I met David. He was a very good sport despite me calling him Dominic for the first 10 minutes, and was so knowledgeable and very welcoming and answered many questions from the group.

Coming up

We are running an online Meet the Funder for the Burbo Bank Extension Fund on Monday 20th July 2026. This funder is very flexible, if you are based in the geographic area of benefit, with it being very easy to check on their website which has an interactive map. Liz Payne, the Grant Director, has been managing this fund for over 10 years and has been a real fount of knowledge and support to organisations when they have questions about the fund. Click here to register for the Burbo Bank Extension fund Meet the Funder event.

Finally I want to give an honourable mention to our next session with the Plinth Team on the 16th July 2026. Wirral CVS use Plinth to administrate all our grants so all our applicants use this system to monitor their grant. Plinth offer a free basic CRM to organisations and this is your chance to see how it works. Ceci Sutcliffe will be joining us for an online session to demonstrate the free system, and it's functionality. Click here to register for the Plinth demonstration session.