Ulster Bank Skills & Opportunities Fund to Re-open in September

Heads up from Ulster Bank: September sees the last ever round of our Skills & Opportunities Fund

Round 2 2018 of the Ulster Bank Skills & Opportunities Fund, launching on 3 September, will be the final opportunity to apply for a community grant of up to €35k.

With the busy summer holidays now under way, we wanted to make sure that you had plenty of time to prepare, if you’d been considering a future funding bid.

We have funding of €87.5k available, and are looking for applications from not-for-profit organisations with a project or project idea focused on providing opportunities for people to develop their financial capability skills or the skills to start or develop a new business now or in the future in our local communities.

As with previous rounds, a selection of organisations will be shortlisted, and voting will then be opened to the public to help decide the winners, who will be announced in December.

Here’s why previous winner WALK thinks it’s an opportunity too good to miss:

We’re delighted that thanks to the Ulster Bank Skills & Opportunities Fund, the WALK PEER programme is having, and will continue to have, a significant long-term impact on the forms of support we can offer. 

We’ve been able to prove the need for and benefits of in-school engagement with the world of work for young people with intellectual disability and/or autism. We are therefore identifying that we can bridge a gap within the system and raise the potential for these young people to gain employment in the mainstream marketplace at a young age, thereby avoiding a life-long dependency on benefits.

So, if you have an eligible project in mind or know of someone else who might, head to the Skills & Opportunities website for everything you need to know, including full eligibility criteria and case studies from previous winners:

http://skillsandopportunitiesfund.ulsterbank.com/

Applications open again on Monday 3 September.