Building community capacity is at the heart of what we do. Our Scottish Team provides capacity building support to build systems, skills, people and resources from the Hub.

CRT is well-known as a key player facilitating the development of community capacity, by encouraging small, voluntary, charitable and other organisations to expand their scope, build new partnerships and tackle more ambitious projects within the communities they support.

In the course of our work, we identified a need for additional in-depth capacity building activities in the small communities we support.

When talking to community representatives, councillors and local authority officers who work in coalfield communities it has become clear that there is a need for further development and capacity building support to assist small organisations to take forward their ideas.

CRT in Scotland has limited resources and work will be prioritised to help organisations operating in coalfield communities that have difficulty in fundraising, such as smaller community groups and social enterprises which:

•   Have no paid workers
•   Are isolated
•   Are not working with existing networks, forums or other intermediaries and partner agencies

We will not:

•   Write funding applications, but we will offer advice and help
•   Offer free support to statutory organisations like local authorities, hospitals or schools (but are open to discuss partnership or commissioning arrangements)
•   Help individuals or non-charitable organisations

Our approach involves mentoring, coaching and hands on support, seeking at every point to transfer knowledge and skills to coalfield organisations. This will be accompanied by access to relevant information, materials and learning resources.