The new Health and Social Care Volunteering Fund provides a combination of grant funding and support to third-sector organisations working with volunteers in the health and social care field.

The Fund will provide two distinct grant funding schemes:

• Local Grant Scheme - aimed at supporting volunteering in health and social care. Awards will be made subject to applicants being connected at local level to commissioners.
• National Portfolio Scheme - national organisations will be able to apply for more substantial awards to deliver more strategic or developmental volunteering programmes.

The Local Grant Scheme is currently open to applications.  Regions will be clustered for targeting in the following groups:

• North East and North West.
• East Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside.
• South Central, South West and West Midlands.
• London, South East and East of England.

The Fund priorities are as follows: Strategic Alignment; Strategic Framework; and Volunteering Strategy.  In addition to the priorities applications should demonstrate a contribution to one of the cross cutting themes:

• Cross cutting theme 1: Addressing Social Care priorities.
• Cross cutting theme 2: Addressing Health Inequalities.

It is anticipated that between six and eight grants of up to £35,000 over 3 years, will be available in each region and grant support should taper off over three years.

The 2010 deadlines for the Local Grant Scheme are as follows:

• North East and North West: 4 May 2010 (opened 8 February 2010).
• East Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside: 25 May 2010 (opens 8 March 2010).
• South Central, South West and West Midlands: 28 June 2010 (opens 5 April 2010).
• London, South East and East of England: 12 July 2010 (opens 19 April 2010).

National organisations will be able to apply under the National Portfolio Scheme, details will be reported once this Scheme opens later in 2010.