Community Impact Support Scheme (CISS)
The Community Impact Support Scheme (CISS) has now closed but was a new business support and funding mechanism aimed at organisations within the social economy. It had a grant making budget of £450,000 over 2 years. Through investing in the work of the social economy the scheme’s intention was to help address the needs arising from welfare reform and wider public sector cuts by promoting independence and self reliance in communities.
A full assessment of the CISS has been conducted and the report is available here. In summary, the main finding of this assessment is that CISS successfully achieved its aims for those delivery organisations willing to change their approach to revenue generation, as well as most of its beneficiaries. It provided very good value for money and has left a lasting legacy of improved sustainability for those organisations (and hence their beneficiaries) that took advantage of its funding.