The Building Connections Fund
We are leading the learning and evaluation partnership for the first ever cross-government Building Connections Fund, dedicated to reducing loneliness in England.
We are leading a consortium of evaluation and learning partners for the Building Connections Fund—an £11.5m partnership between seven government departments, The National Lottery Community Fund, and Co-op Foundation.
The fund aims to:
- increase social connections, helping people form strong and meaningful relationships and creating a sense of community and belonging, and helping people feel more connected
- support organisations to build on their existing work, e.g. by reaching more people, or working in a new area or with a different method or group of people
- encourage organisations to join up with others locally
- improve the evidence base and use learning to inform longer term policy and funding decisions.
The Building Connections Fund has given grants to 126 voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations working with different groups across England, beginning in January 2019. Grants lengths vary , but most are for two years.
We are working to evaluate the impact of the fund, in partnership with the Centre for Youth Impact, the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, Brunel University London, and Bryson Purdon Social Research.
Alongside our role as learning and evaluation partner for the Building Connections fund, we have also evaluated an associated fund focussed on maximising the use of community spaces to tackle loneliness, particularly for young people. We conducted a qualitative evaluation of these projects to better understand the role of co-design and community spaces in reducing loneliness for young people.
We are undertaking a Developmental Evaluation of the grant-holders post-Covid 19 response to learn from the current situation and capture emerging findings, visit our NPC Labs page to follow the progress. Sign up to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date with our latest research. For resources and further evidence on tackling loneliness, visit the What Works Centre for Wellbeing’s dedicated webpage.
Evaluating the Building Connections Fund
We are gathering evidence together to improve the evidence base on loneliness, which will be used to inform longer term policy and funding decisions.
Learn more
Co-design and community spaces
We conducted a qualitative evaluation of projects to better understand the role of co-design and community spaces in reducing loneliness for young people.
Learn moreThis is a really exciting opportunity. Focusing on learning and impact alongside programme delivery will create an evidence base that will benefit the sector well beyond the Building Connections Fund.
It will build the capacity of organisations in this space to understand their impact and improve their services.
Our Project Team
Follow our work
Creating safe online spaces for young people
In this guest blog, Kelly Bradshaw-Walsh from the Centre for Youth Impact explores how social distancing has led to a new focus on safe online spaces.
Evaluating and learning during Covid-19
How do you evaluate when everything around you is constantly changing? We're shifting to a developmental evaluation approach for our work on the Building Connections Fund. Elizabeth Parker explains how.
Can technology make us less lonely?
Almost a third of groups we looked at are prioritising technology to overcome loneliness among young people. Here's how...
DCMS appoints NPC to lead evaluation and learning for Building Connections Fund
We're pleased to announce we'll be leading a consortium of evaluation and learning providers for the Building Connections Fund—an £11.5m investment to tackle loneliness, funded by the UK Government, the Big Lottery Fund and the Co-op Foundation.
Evaluating the Building Connections Fund
Our guidance for grant-holders of the Building Connections Fund, which can be applied to other projects tackling loneliness. It is designed to complement the What Works Centre for Wellbeing’s guidance A Brief Guide to measuring loneliness.
The Building Connections Fund: Co-design and community spaces
NPC has conducted a qualitative evaluation of the role of co-design and community spaces in reducing loneliness for young people. The cross-government £11.5m Building Connections Fund is a partnership between government, The National Lottery Community Fund, and the Co-op Foundation.
