Our Scotland Director, Jackie Killeen updates you on our New Portfolio developments.

In late 2015 the Big Lottery Fund in Scotland is intending to launch its new funding portfolio.

The New Year therefore signals an exciting and very busy time for us. In January, February and March a number of focus groups, round tables, webinars, meetings and surveys will take place to strengthen and update the bank of information and learning we currently hold, including the interesting views gathered from the recent UK-wide conversation to inform the Big Lottery Fund’s new strategic framework.

Some of these events will engage specific organisations to help us to capture information on particular issues. Other events will seek to gather wider comment and opinion from a broad range of interested parties. The main aim of all of these conversations is to support the development of a funding portfolio that is relevant to the needs and aspirations of communities and individuals in Scotland today and in the future.

The information we’ve gathered from our experience and conversations so far is giving us a good steer in our early thinking.

We know that the Big Lottery Fund’s overarching mission will continue to focus on helping people and communities most in need. In Scotland, we want to achieve this mission by funding work which reduces inequality. We want Lottery Funding to do this in a supportive way, explicitly identifying and building on the assets, strengths and opportunities that exist amongst people and communities across Scotland.

We are considering the importance of and need for further preventative work, whilst recognising the necessity of vital support for many individuals and families in Scotland. Alongside this, we are exploring the best way to support community-led work that strengthens people’s influence in their own communities and enables communities to act for themselves.

This is a very broad picture of our thinking so far and will be further informed by the information we gather through our series of events in early 2015.

We’d like you to tell us what you think of our direction of travel:

You can email your thoughts to Scotland.2015.portfolio@biglotteryfund.org.uk or tweet me @JackieKilleen

You can follow the journey to our new portfolio and comment on Twitter @Bigscotland #2020funding or on Facebook, Big Lottery Fund Scotland

You can also follow the journey by subscribing to bigblogscotland.org.uk

Finally, you can leave comments at the bottom of this blog