The Building Change Trust (BCT) was established in 2008 by the Big Lottery Fund following the submission and acceptance of a proposal developed by five bid partners including: Community Evaluation Northern Ireland, the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, Business in the Community, Rural Community Network and the Volunteer Development Agency (now Volunteer Now).

The Trust is resourced through a National Lottery grant of £10 million as an investment for community capacity building and promotion of the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland.

The Trust is accepted as a charity by HM Revenue and Customs (XT11390) and is managed by a corporate trustee; Building Change Trust Limited.

The corporate Trustee, Building Change Trust Limited is registered as a company limited by guarantee in Northern Ireland (NI071182).

The corporate Trustee has 9 Directors drawn from across the community, voluntary and private sectors and a Protector appointed by the Big Lottery Fund. Each of the original bid proposers along with the Big Lottery Fund has the right to nominate one Director to the Board of the corporate trustee.

The Trust will by the 31 December 2018 have invested and expended the £10 million original grant along with any interest generated.

The Trust plans to support the community and voluntary sector through the development and delivery of and learning from a range of programmes including commissioned work, awards programmes and other interventions.

Bid Partners

CENI, with the other original bid partners, as recipients of a grant under the BCT Transformative Grant Programme, have undertaken to deliver a three year programme of work from January 2009 – December 2011.

The approach adopted through the partnership has been an experimental one, bringing together five regional infrastructural organisations in an attempt to synthesise their individual expertise and experience and develop innovative approaches to supporting transformation and change in the voluntary and community sector.  This is being addressed through two key strands:

• The Catalyst for Change initiative, which is attempting to evolve a collaborative approach to produce integrated models of working in two priority areas – Upper Ards and Enniskillen; and
• Work carried out individually by each of the organisations on a regional and/or theme-based basis.

How is CENI supporting the work of the Building Change Trust?

Within the Partnership, CENI is responsible for:

• Social assets - dissemination and analysis of the 2008 social assets datasets to inform programme planning and evaluation; and reviewing and updating the social assets database in 2012.

• Needs Assessment and Development - reviewing the sector’s needs in relation to evaluation, and developing appropriate approaches to address those needs. To date this has included:

• ‘Measuring Up’  - A Review of Evaluation Practice in the Voluntary and Community Sector

• ‘More Effective Reporting’ – seminar presenting work of Evaluation Support Scotland and the Scotland Funders Forum.

• ‘Measuring Change: A New Approach’ – development and presentation of a methodology to baseline and measure outcomes within funding programmes.

• ‘Fit for Purpose: Regulation, Good Governance, and Use of Quality Standards’ - conference in conjunction with the Developing Governance Group

• Facilitation and Support within the Catalyst for Change initiative – this has involved both generic and customised support within  two areas, including the development of tools to profile local community assets.

• Formative Evaluation – providing a formative evaluation of the work of the bid partners including the Catalyst for Change initiative, capturing positive change and replicating success.