The Communities Innovating Yorkshire (CIY) Fund — successful projects announced
Uncategorized Tuesday 5 August 2025
Following a four month process and an overwhelming influx of over 200 applications, we would like to share the twenty-two projects funded through the CIY Fund.
Applying a partnership approach to the decision making process
The Communities Innovating Yorkshire (CIY) Fund is a ringfenced £800,000 resource embedded in the Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership (YPIP) project. The collaborative approach of the YPIP project sat at the heart of the CIY Fund, led by Holly Ingram, Lauren Cox and Lizzie Bonsor from the YPIP Core Team based at the University of Leeds. Subject matter representatives from academia and the voluntary sector teamed up with five members of the YPIP Community Panel to review all applications and utilise their diverse perspectives to agree on the allocation of funds, conscious of the five thematic areas and the geographical scope of the commissioning programme.
Theme 1 — Collecting and utilising community data
Sheffield Social Enterprise Network ‘Enhancing Social Impact Measurement Across South Yorkshire’s Social Enterprise Sector’ — Our project supports at least 50 established social enterprises across South Yorkshire to collect, analyse and communicate their social impact, through co-designed metrics, using a shared digital ‘Impact Reporting’ tool. By aligning metrics with the Sheffield City Goals and the open source ‘Measure Up’ framework, we’re building a consistent, inclusive approach to social value reporting. The result is a stronger evidence base that can influence local policy, unlock funding and amplify community voice.
“Social enterprises across South Yorkshire are making a real difference, but too often that impact isn’t captured, shared or recognised. This project will give us the tools and common language we need to tell our story more powerfully, and to show the real value our sector brings to our communities and the economy.” (Terry Murphy, CEO, Sheffield Social Enterprise Network)
DiverseCity Development Trust ‘Empowering Marginalised Communities through Data-Driven Policy Innovation’ — Our project empowers underrepresented communities across South Yorkshire to lead their own data collection and shape local policy through lived experience. By training 50 participants and building a digital data hub, we aim to shift how policy is informed, making it more inclusive, evidence-based, and community-led. The initiative connects residents, universities, and policymakers to co-produce change that reflects real needs.
“We believe data is power — and that power should belong to the people. This project will enable communities too often spoken about, but rarely spoken with, to generate their own insights and drive policy that finally listens and responds.” (Kalpa Palliyaguruge, Project and Partnerships Manager, DiverseCity Development Trust)
Clifton Learning Partnership ‘Raising aspirations and employability through a supported mentorship programme’ — The project will offer intensive one-to-one support to two young Roma women to support them into childcare employability; providing equality of opportunity to marginalised communities, promoting inclusion and providing accessible services. A bespoke pathway will be co-designed between the young person and their mentor with support from key stakeholders exploring the various ways of accessing this employment. The participants will receive 2 hours pastoral support each week from their mentor which will be tailored to their individual needs. This project will demonstrate the value of using in-depth qualitative data and evidence in communicating the support needs of this community — large quantitative data samples are unrealistic.
“Our hope is that the project will demonstrate how relationship building within a personalised support pathway can make a fundamental difference to the employability of racially marginalised young women, contributing to a growing body of evidence to inform local policy and practice”
Community First Yorkshire ‘Impact Together Hub’ — The Community First Yorkshire Impact Together Hub is set to become a dynamic central resource, empowering North Yorkshire’s VCSE sector to harness the full potential of its data. By breaking down barriers to data sharing through smart tools, tailored training, and access to vital datasets, it will unlock new opportunities for insight and collaboration. This initiative aims to elevate impact measurement, strengthen organisational sustainability, and foster a more connected, data-driven VCSE community.
Victoria Russell, Project Manager at Community First Yorkshire, said: “This project is about unlocking the power of the data already held by our VCSE sector — bringing it together in one place so it can be used to help shape better services, strengthen funding bids, and highlight the real needs of our communities. By supporting organisations to share their insights and access wider data, we hope to build a clearer picture of what’s happening across North Yorkshire, especially in rural and marginalised communities that are often overlooked. Ultimately, the Hub will help turn local knowledge into action, making a real difference for the people who need it most.”
Theme 2 — Good work and better business
Lighthouse Futures Trust ‘How to harness neurodiversity as a competitive advantage in business’ — Lighthouse Futures Trust and ThinkND are collaborating on a project that could revolutionise the support that is available for neuro-divergent people who are looking for work or are in work. By working with jobseekers, employees and employers, they will look at the key barriers around recruitment, onboarding and ongoing support and then collate and/or co-create a range of practical tools and guides that will demonstrate how employers can learn how to harness neurodiversity as a competitive advantage in business.
Programme Manager, Sally-Anne Greenfield says “the work the partners already do with neuro-divergent employees demonstrates the many skills and talents they bring to the workplace, not least because they think in a different way which can lead to excellent problem-solving ability, and real innovation. We know that barriers exist and believe that we can help to highlight the many simple things that employers can do to make the work environment one in which neuro-divergent people can thrive.”
My Lean Coach Limited ‘Inclusive Productivity Demonstrator: Piloting Digital Innovation for Underrepresented Yorkshire SMEs’ — This project looks to make productivity tools accessible to underrepresented SME communities, developing a culturally-sensitive diagnostic tool for Yorkshire’s diverse business contexts. The project will co-create simplified productivity templates with 15 SMEs from ethnically diverse and women-led businesses, with the goal of creating a model for inclusive productivity improvement that addresses Yorkshire’s specific regional challenges while supporting its most underrepresented business communities.
“Imagine if every SME in our region could boost productivity a few percent! Our dream is to help SMEs turn up productivity and make our knowledge of operational excellence easily accessible to this community because more productive SME’s means more local wealth creation and positive outcomes for our communities.”
Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority ‘Roots to Jobs: Building Green Skills Together’— The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, in partnership with Bradford College and local green sector organisations, aims to co-create a green skills development programme tailored for young people from marginalised communities, particularly refugees and asylum seekers. Building on the successful “Up Skill Down Dale” model, the project will deliver hands-on training, career networking, and policy innovation to improve access to green employment. The initiative seeks to reduce inequalities, enhance employability, and foster inclusive pathways into the green economy.
“We are really excited about this new project and are hoping it will give our ESOL students the opportunity to plan and participate in meaningful practical projects in our local area. It will enable them to feel a part of the community and see how they can contribute to it, offer practical work experience in areas they might not have considered open to then, and boost their self-confidence and aspirations, all alongside them the chance to use their developing language skills in real-life situations and learn vocabulary in context!”
Sheffield Futures ‘NextGen Consulting: Future-Proofing Your Workplace’ — NextGen Consulting is a youth-proofing consultancy that helps organisations become more youth-friendly by assessing their policies, culture, and practices through the lens of young people. Young consultants provide tailored recommendations to bridge the gap between employer expectations and the needs of the next generation. Our aim is to help businesses attract, engage, and retain young talent by fostering inclusive and future-ready workplaces.
“Every young person deserves a fair opportunity to find good work. By addressing the barriers young people face and equipping employers to respond, we’re creating fairer access to work, stronger support systems, and workplaces where young people can thrive. When workplaces truly listen to young people, they don’t just gain employees, they help shape confident, capable leaders ready to build the future.”
Theme 3 — Culture and Creative Industries
Bradford Producing Hub ‘Empowered Futures: Breaking Barriers in Arts Leadership’ — Empowered Futures is an action-research initiative that supports under-represented and minoritised artists in accessing leadership opportunities in the creative sector. It builds directly on Bradford Producing Hub interventions that have transformed Bradford’s creative ecology over the past 5 years — driving a profound shift in who makes, accesses and influences the arts.
“We’re really delighted to be able to deliver the Empowered Futures programme, which aims to make a meaningful difference to the diversity of leadership in the creative sector. The project will bring together a core group of 45 marginalised aspiring leaders drawn from our past Empowered cohorts (Global Majority, Disabled & Neurodiverse, and LGBTQIA+ artists). Together, we will reflect on real-life career trajectories, helping to identify both persistent barriers and successful pathways into leadership, and co-produce progressive recommendations and actionable solutions to improve access to leadership in the arts.”
darts (Doncaster Community Arts) ‘Artist Traineeships’ — Nine early career global majority artists will have the opportunity to develop their practice through hands on delivery, mentoring, coaching and support from experienced industry contacts and creative organisations. Maya Productions and darts — Doncaster’s Creative Health and Learning Charity — will lead the traineeship programme, focusing on improving pathways into the creative industries for under-represented artists. The project responds to the gap in opportunity for global majority artists to break into the industry, creating paid opportunities for development, and a broader understanding of race and allyship in South Yorkshire’s cultural sector.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for under-represented artists to develop their participatory practice within a safe and well supported environment. The paid traineeships will strengthen and diversify South Yorkshire’s creative workforce. The project will strengthen knowledge around race and allyship for practitioners and creative, cultural and commissioning organisations across the region. We are delighted to be working with darts on this collaborative programme.” — Suzanne Gorman, Artistic Director, Maya Productions
The Music Box Yorkshire CIC ‘Stay on Track’ — Stay On Track is a creative intervention project designed to engage young people involved with Leeds Youth Justice Service (YJS). We will be using DJing, rapping, beat-making, and singing, the project provides an alternative pathway to rehabilitation, helping young people develop confidence, creativity, and transferable skills that support their future education, employment, and personal growth.
“We hope that our project becomes more than just a creative outlet — it becomes a turning point in many young people’s lives, supporting them to build confidence through music, and realise that they have talents and choices that can lead them toward a more positive future. By offering a space where they’re heard and supported, we believe this project can make a lasting difference in their lives and in our community.”
Fourteen19 Social t/a Youth Social ‘Investigating the Upscaling of our Youth Podcast Co-Production Model (PoCoM) to make Arts and Culture more accessible for young people’ — We will test the feasibility of upscaling our Youth Content Co-Production Model to provide creative and digital skills for young people (including those from minoritised communities) across the whole of West Yorkshire and beyond. Whilst we will be creating content on a variety of youth-focused subjects, this project will have a specific focus on promoting arts and culture activities being undertaken locally. Through the project we will explore ‘how to develop content with young people from minoritised groups’, ‘does peer-produced content encourage other young people to engage in arts & culture activities’ and ‘can the model become a sustainable enterprise that provides paid employment opportunities for teens, young adults and creative professionals?’
“We are very excited to receive this funding as it will significantly aid our ability to scale up our activity both regionally and nationally. We are particularly keen to explore the opportunities with local universities as this project has the potential to be of significant benefit for students and graduates.” — Graham Sykes, Senior Director, Youth Social.
The Leap Bradford CIC ‘Understanding Community-led Culture in Bradford and Keighley’ — The Leap is a programme supported by Arts Council England and Bradford Council that aims to provide arts and culture to everyone in Bradford District. The Leap is leading a community-led research project, in partnership with York St John University and an independent evaluator, to explore and evidence cultural leadership from underrepresented communities in Bradford and Keighley. Through peer interviews, reflective workshops, and citizen’s assemblies, the project will uncover motivations, barriers, and definitions of local cultural leadership. The findings will inform policy and practice while building a scalable model for community-led culture, culminating in a knowledge-sharing event and creative storytelling commission.
Professor Matthew Reason said “Art and cultural leadership is often dominated by people from narrow and privileged backgrounds. This research collaboration will develop a model of how we can change this through collecting community-led understandings of the barriers, motivations and impacts of local cultural leadership.”
Akinwale Johnson Ogundipe said, “When we listen to those leading culture in overlooked places, we start to see cultural leadership differently — grounded in real lives, driven by local values, and powerful enough to shape bigger change from the bottom up.”
Theme 4 — Climate-Ready Places
CaVCA (Coast and Vale Community Action) ‘Good to Grow’ — Good to Grow will work with the community in Scarborough to investigate why more people don’t grow their own food, what prevents existing community food growing projects from scaling up and how barriers to food growing can be overcome.
David Stone, Strategic Development Manager at CaVCA said, “We already have a thriving food growing community in Scarborough and this project will help us to understand how we can get more people involved and how as a place we can get better at providing for our food needs, with all the environmental, social and health benefits that brings.”
North York Moors National Park Authority ‘Voices for Nature: Local Leadership in Climate Resilience’ — Voices for Nature is an initiative, led by the North York Moors National Park Authority and York St John University, that helps people in remote and disadvantaged areas near the River Esk get involved in looking after their local environment. It gives communities the chance to share their ideas, learn about climate change, and take part in nature-based activities like tree planting or habitat restoration. The goal is to improve local wellbeing and make sure their voices help shape climate and environmental policy decisions.
“We hope this project will not only give a voice to communities often left out of climate conversations but also show that meaningful change starts with local knowledge and action. By reconnecting people with their natural environment, we aim to create resilient, inclusive spaces where both nature and communities thrive.” Dr Briony Fox, Director of Conservation and Climate Change, North York Moors National Park Authority.
Yorkshire Peat Partnership (led by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust) ‘Sphagnum Pioneers’ — Sphagnum pioneers will explore how to engage communities in peatland restoration through direct involvement in growing sphagnum moss, the keystone species vital to ensuring the resilience and effective functioning of these landscapes. Communities will take a lead in exploring approaches to both propagating sphagnum at a local level and reintroducing these mosses through real world revegetation trials. The project will involve volunteers, educationalists, peat practitioners, landowners and managers in developing methods and shaping policies towards localised production of vital plants for upland restoration right here in Yorkshire.
“Yorkshire Peat Partnership works with communities to create opportunities to become directly involved in the protection and restoration of our precious peatlands. We hope their involvement in Sphagnum Pioneers will not only develop a sense of pride and connection to these wonderful upland habitats but also foster a sense of hope and possibility in the face of climate change and required adaptation.”
Connecting Crossgates (part of Leeds Christian Community Trust) ‘Right to Grow’ — Right to Grow (RTG) builds on the enthusiasm of communities in East Leeds to reclaim and transform local green spaces into vibrant hubs for sustainable food growing and nature conservation. Residents of all backgrounds and ages are encouraged to actively participate in practical growing activities, creative workshops, performances, and public forums. The project aims to influence city-wide policy and champion local areas through fostering community connections, skills and resilience.
“Right to Grow is inspired by our amazing local communities in East Leeds, who are leading the way in taking stewardship over more green spaces. By getting together and getting creative, as well as getting our hands a bit dirty, we can build spaces that feed us, nature, and future generations. We’re not going to do it quietly either, through public forums and performances, we are going to shout about our hard work and hopefully influence city-wide policy.”
FoodWise Leeds ‘Leeds Food Growing Network — a local food growth plan’ — The Leeds Food Growing Network (LFGN) aims to strengthen local food growing in Leeds creating a web of community food resilience while improving greenspaces and biodiversity. LFGN aims to unify and magnify the voice of community and urban food growing, using existing policy infrastructure created to deliver the Leeds Food Strategy to better engage with researchers and policymakers to co-produce policy and deliver actions to ensure a more resilient local food system.
‘This is a great opportunity to support community and urban food growers in their work on the ground, and to ensure their voices are listened to with the intent to influence local policy and increase production and equity of access to local good food.” Sonja Woodcock, FoodWise Leeds.
Theme 5 — Communities in their places
LS14 Trust ‘Voices in Place — Seacroft Speaks’ — a community-led research project that puts Seacroft residents in charge of exploring the issues that matter most to them. Through training, workshops, and small research grants, local people, including young people, will lead investigations and share their findings directly with decision-makers. The project will build local skills, strengthen partnerships, and help shape future plans and services in Seacroft.
“We want this project to put real power into the hands of the community so the people of Seacroft aren’t just being heard but are leading change. It’s about making sure local voices and experiences drive decisions that will shape the future of our area for generations to come.”
Groundwork Yorkshire ‘Powering our Community’ — This project will work with residents from Hull’s 4 permanent Gypsy Traveller sites, through a co-design process we will explore opportunities to address inequalities experienced by residents in relation to energy and help create potential policy change at a local and national level for the community.
Karen Tozer (Programme manager for Groundwork Yorkshire) “Currently Gypsy Roma Traveller communities are spending a disproportionate amount of their household incomes on heating their homes. Many of properties are energy inefficient leaving some of the most vulnerable in the community struggling with the choice between heating and eating. Through this project want to identify opportunities to reduce fuel poverty and develop sustainable energy solutions that can bring about lasting change”
Jamaica Society Leeds ‘Why Community Space Matters: Jamaica House as a Place for Intergenerational Exchange’ — The Jamaica Society Leeds is reimagining Jamaica House into a dynamic multigenerational cultural hub. Once a cornerstone for the Windrush generation in Chapeltown, Leeds, we are uniting the first, second- and third generations of Caribbean community members through cultural events, and by allocating micro-budgets to members across all the generations to imagine and deliver projects that bridge generational divides and preserve heritage. Partnering with University of Leeds researchers, the Society will gather data on what makes community spaces inclusive and sustainable, providing insights that will shape future policy and interrogate models for cultural centres across Yorkshire and beyond.
“I hope this project will bring all generations together, creating a space where we can learn from one another, share our cultures, and build a community rooted in happiness, inclusivity, and respectful positivity.” — Wendy Henry, Chairperson, The Jamaica Society Leeds
Giroscope ‘New House Types in HU3’ — Giroscope ambition is to develop our work with BlokBuild, a local business with a mission to make the built environment sustainable through deploying innovative digital manufacturing technologies, to extend our self-help housing model in a new collaboration delivering eco-retrofit solutions to a number of Giroscope terrace housing undergoing refurbishment while instigating the next stage and deliver a transformation by developing new house types for development to lock in employment and skills development opportunities around innovative use of these new methods of construction. Giroscope’s ambition is to co-design, co-create and co-produce with the community possible new housing solutions set within a small sites context
“Giroscope is excited to be working with the community to co-design and develop new forms of housing in and around the HU3 neighbourhood. This YPIP funded pilot will explore ways to use new methods of housing construction and, critically, ensure local people gain access to new skills and employment opportunities. Working with BlokBuild, a local Hull based SME we will be working to develop access routes to these new methods of construction. The funding allows us to explore how these technologies can meet local housing need and help grow new employment.”
Next steps for the CIY Fund programme
The projects will commence shortly and will be completed by September 2026. The findings and insights generated from this commissioning programme will be incorporated into the overall learning from the Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership (YPIP) project.
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