Active Communities is a funding programme for community groups, not-for-profit organisations and local people wanting to create fairer places to grow, live, work and age.

We support small and local projects, genuinely designed and run by local people across England, Scotland and Wales.

Through this programme participants come up with their own locally determined ideas, in order to strengthen social connections and encourage greater collective control. By enabling participants to take the lead and by putting processes in place to address issues that are important to them, the programme aims to make local communities and neighbourhoods even better.

We fund two types of projects:

  • Neighbourhood-based projects - resident-led projects in neighbourhoods experiencing disadvantage because they are the most affected by health inequalities.
  • Communities of Interest - projects which connect groups of people with shared identities or experiences who face additional barriers to good health due to discrimination and further inequality.

Find out more about Active Communities in our projects section.

Active Communities began in 2012, supporting many hundreds of organisations over this time. The Trust currently supports over 300 projects that have already been awarded funding. We will continue to support projects already funded and are no longer awarding new funding through this programme.