Ethnic minority groups seek funding

Many ethnic minority voluntary organisations
fail because they do not have money for day-to-day running costs,
says a new survey.

The three-year Fundraising Sustainability
Project highlights problems surrounding gaining access to
funds.

Among its findings were that ethnic minority
organisations do not use organisations such as councils for
voluntary service as a resource, and many felt they had to be twice
as good as other organisations to attract funding.

Home Office minister Angela Eagle told
delegates at a conference for ethnic minority organisations in
London earlier this month, where the initial findings of the survey
were unveiled, that the government had to ensure that ethnic
minority groups had the same access to financial support as other
groups. “The active community unit has doubled the amount of money
going into ethnic minority groups from £812,000 in 1999-2000
to £1,959,000 in 2001-2. But the sector still does not receive
its fair share,” she said.

Maggie Taylor, who worked on the project,
said: “The problem for these groups is that they don’t know who is
going to fund their core costs. Funders want to fund projects but
not the infrastructure.”