The Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire, Mike Kapur Esq OBE, brought together charities from across Leicester and Leicestershire at an event on Monday (30th September) at the Queen Victoria Arts Club in Leicester’s Cultural Quarter.
The event aims to help small charities to get a better understanding of the role of the Lord Lieutenant and how it relates to them, as well as learn about the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. It also offers support on how to correctly apply for grant funding.
Around 60 charities from across the city and county attended the event which included Healing Little Hearts, YMCA, Eyres Monsall Club for Young People and Leicestershire Historic Churches.
Mr Kapur said: “I think for the Lord Lieutenant to do this means that a lot of charities want to come along and hopefully understand who the Lord Lieutenant is, to meet the Lord Lieutenant and to learn about the Queen’s award for Voluntary Service which the Lord Lieutenant is responsible for promoting. It also allows me to focus and pick charities who I think might work well together.”
As well as networking, insightful talks were also given at the event. Stephen Draisey of Samworth Brothers Foundation spoke about ‘What a good funding application looks like’ and Kevan Liles, CEO of Voluntary Action Leicester talked about ‘What bid writing help is available.’
Kevan Liles, CEO of Voluntary Action Leicester, said: “This event is the start of something big which is bringing out all the small local charities across Leicester and Leicestershire to make sure that they are recognised, and they have the recognition from the Lord Lieutenant and can be seen more by the general public.
“There are 3,500 charities across Leicester and Leicestershire, so that’s why I say it’s the start of something, because we want to steadily get to all of those charities, so they all get to see the importance of getting support and get the chance to network with each other and have the chance to get the support of the Lord-Lieutenant.”
