Capacitybuilders’ has announced the lead organisations that will be facilitating its National Support Programmes, following on from its decision in September to scrap the Hubs of Expertise.

Capacitybuilders said it would be providing £11 million in funding for a three year investment programme across an initial seven work streams. The lead organisations will now be developing detailed business plans, with the aim of an April 2008 launch for each of the streams.

Simon Hebditch, chief executive of Capacitybuilders, said: “A range of excellent proposals were assessed in detail and we have sought to award funding to those which presented the clearest analysis of needs in the third sector, and identified gaps and weaknesses in existing sector support.”

Capacitybuilders’ grants committee has not yet chosen providers for its ‘collaboration’ and ‘responding to social change’ streams. Hebditch said this was because the range of proposals which had been put forward suggested the need for more clarity around focus and priorities. “Further work will now be carried out internally on both of these areas,” he added.

Caroline Diehl, chief executive of the Media Trust, which will be leading the marketing and communications stream, said: “[We want] to see a society where the third sector is widely visible, effective and celebrated. Successful marketing and communications is key to the sector’s future.”

Each of the streams will involve partnership working with a range of organisations across the third sector. Peter Kyle, director of strategy and enterprise at Acevo, which will be leading the income generation stream, said: “Our partners in the income generation work stream provide the best cross-sector expertise to uniquely deliver a programme which will allow for support to be given over the full spectrum of income generation… We will also work to join up social enterprise and VCS infrastructure to share their own expertise.”

Voice4Change, itself a consortium of organisations supporting the interests of the black and minority ethnic third sector, is a partner in three of the new programmes: equalities and diversity; income generation; and performance management. Its director Vandna Gohil said: “The value of BME involvement is often acknowledged but in practice the presence is merely window dressing. Voice4Change England has confidence that the partners and consortia established to deliver the work streams are genuine about involving the BME third sector and we are enthusiastic about our role in taking this forward.”

The seven streams which have been awarded funding thus far are:

• Campaigning and advocacy – to be led by the NCVO
• Equalities and diversity – to be led by the Women’s Resource Centre
• Income generation – to be led by Acevo
• Leadership and governance – to be led by the NCVO
• Marketing and communications – to be led by the Media Trust
• Modernising volunteering – to be led by Volunteering England
• Performance management – to be led by Charities Evaluation Services

For further information visit http://capacitybuilders.org.uk