Latest Insights and Publications

A Dormant Asset is a financial product which has been dormant for over 15 years, where an owner cannot be traced. The Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act established a system for distributing dormant accounts (2008), and later, assets (2022), to good causes in the UK. The National Lottery Community Fund is the sole named distributor of Dormant Assets money, distributing funds across all four nations of the UK. In Northern Ireland (NI), the funding has been used to support the NI Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector to be more resilient and prepared for the future, by funding activity that increases capacity and sustainability.

In January 2021, The National Lottery Community Fund launched the Dormant Assets NI Phase 1 Grant Programme, which offered grants to VCSE sector organisations in NI to fund activities seeking to build their capacity, resilience and sustainability. By its closure in March 2023, the Grant Programme had received over 700 applications and had awarded nearly £20m to 244 VCSE sector organisations in NI. 

SQW was commissioned to evaluate the Grant Programme in November 2023. The evaluation runs to May 2025 and aims to provide evidence about the extent to which the Grant Programme and its funded activities are contributing to improving the resilience of VCSEs in NI. It also seeks to share what can be learnt regarding effective practice in sector capacity building, resilience and sustainability.

We have recently published our second interim evaluation report and executive summary. The report explores the emerging evidence of how the Grant Programme is contributing to improving the resilience of the VCSE sector in NI, setting out what’s working in delivering and achieving outcomes. Insights in this report are largely focused on grant holders and unsuccessful applicants who were awarded or applied for a grant between February and June 2023 (this cohort were the focus of the second wave of evaluation fieldwork). The report explores the extent to which their activities have aligned with good practice identified from the wider evidence base.

The report draws on a survey of grant holders, a survey of unsuccessful applicants, and a series of interviews with each cohort. It also draws on three case studies, each focused on a VCSE sector organisation in receipt of grant funding: Bolster Community, Crescent Arts Centre, and Developing Healthy Communities.

At the second interim reporting stage, we have found that:

• Grant holders most commonly applied to the Grant Programme to address resource based challenges. These included issues with generating or diversifying income streams, having limited time or resources to conduct strategic or long-term planning, and access to digital resources; these reflect the socio-economic context for VCSE organisations in NI. As a result, the range and nature of projects funded broadly mirrored the challenges that grant holders hoped to address.
   
• Approaches which have worked well for the grant funded organisations in building capacity, resilience and sustainability align with the evidence regarding effective practice (as identified in the first interim evaluation report). These factors centre on effective project planning processes, ensuring adequate skills and resource for project delivery, building relationships and collaborating, developing leadership and management capabilities, and building unrestricted income.
   
• The Grant Programme has continued to be successful in generating outcomes and impacts for VCSE organisations in receipt of grant funding. The evidence indicates that outcomes experienced are often mutually reinforcing.
   
• Consistent with the findings of the first interim evaluation report, many of the outcomes and impacts reported can be attributed to the grant funding. Grant holders either reported they would not have achieved the outcomes at all without the grant, or not to the same quality, pace and scale.

We delivered two Virtual Learning Sessions with grant holders to share findings from our second interim evaluation report. A recording of the presentation delivered is available to watch below.