Community Mentoring & Grants Programme

The Community Mentoring & Grants Programme focusses on mentoring and supporting groups to develop your community development practice to build on your strengths so you can take action on the social, economic and health issues that matter most to your community.

If your community group/organisation is accepted onto the Community Mentoring and Grants programme, you will become an Elevate Mentee for 2025/26 and will benefit from dedicated, ongoing support from the CDHN team and one of our experienced community mentor organisations.

Mentors will work with you identify your community needs, issues and what is important and explore your groups strengths and opportunities for growth in community development practice, with a focus on addressing health inequalities.  Through one-to-one and group mentoring, reflective practice sessions and engaging networking sessions, you’ll build your skills, knowledge and expertise in community development, connect with other mentee groups, share information and ideas and build lasting partnerships.

The CDHN team will also provide support through individual visits, phone calls and invitations to wider events.  All successful groups will receive Elevate training on community development and health inequalities, and you’ll also have access to a range of additional training opportunities—completely free for Elevate mentees—including sessions on evaluation and impact, group work skills, and health literacy. New this year, we’re excited to introduce a Community Development Practitioners Forum, offering even more opportunities for learning, collaboration, and inspiration.

You will receive a grant of up to £5000 to deliver a project aimed at reducing health inequalities in your community (local community or community of interest).  Your project will use a community development approach and focus on the root causes of health inequalities which involve many social factors outside medical care.

What is expected of Elevate Mentee groups?

• Your staff/volunteers must take part in mentoring and training
• Your project must aim to address the health inequalities, focusing on the social factors that influence health
• Your project will demonstrate a community development approach (CDHN and our mentors will support you with this)
• You can receive up to £5000 in funding for your project, or up to £1000 if your group is unconstituted.
• Your project will run between August 2025 to March 2026
• You fulfil the evaluation and monitoring requirements

 To get some ideas about potential projects, you can find out more about previous Elevate Community Mentoring and Grant Projects through our Elevate Mentee Impact stories and videos and our Impact Reports here

To find out more about the programme and how to apply, come along to one of our information sessions – click here to register