Achievements and performance April 2019 to March 2020

5 Achievements team is huge as new and existing members respond to community need, and performance and require assistance in areas such as setting up new groups and legal April 2019 to structures, business and strategic March 2020 planning, connecting and working with partners and funding. The Team are Supporting community and voluntary exceptional community and voluntary organisations providing vital activities, facilities and services throughout organisations Rhondda Cynon Taf.

Interlink RCT has been fortunate to work with hundreds of unique volunteers and community and voluntary organisations over the year. Their contribution to communities is invaluable and cannot be measured. We thank each and every one of them for their incredible commitment and support.

The Community Advice Team were busy in the community dealing with over 1,000 enquiries from community and voluntary organisations. The variety of support provided by our incredibly privileged to work alongside It was a bumper year for fundraising with 148 successful applications, enabling Interlink RCT to help raise nearly £4m in grants for community and voluntary organisations. This means vital local groups, activities, facilities and services have been secured, such as young people’s school counselling services provided in schools throughout Rhondda Cynon Taf by Eye to Eye. Key funders include Pen Y Cymoedd Wind Farm CIC, The Moondance Foundation, the Big Lottery, Comic Relief and the Welsh Government’s Integrated Care Fund.

The year saw over £500,000 in grants awarded directly by Interlink RCT through grants schemes that we manage. This has resulted in incredible community projects, including children and young people and older people’s projects funded through the Integrated Care Fund, our own Interlink RCT Development Fund, Welsh Government’s ‘Gwirvol’ grants to support young people to volunteer, and our Sydney Albert Fund to support children, young people and families.

We supported over 380 volunteers during the year, including assisting young people through the Gwirvol Youth Grants Young People’s Volunteering Scheme. Interlink RCT received an original grant of over £6k and successfully applied for an additional £30k grant that encouraged over 170 young people to volunteer in projects in their local community. Interlink RCT was also pleased to continue to be involved as grant recipient body for the Invest Local programme, employing a Community Development worker to support the Penywaun Invest Local Group to address the priorities identified by the local community.

Interlink RCT worked in partnership with Pen Y Cymoedd Windfarm Community Fund CIC to support community and voluntary groups to apply to the fund, working across the fund area with Neath Port Talbot County Voluntary Service.

We held a wide range of successful network events and networks including the Cwm Taf Morgannwg Social Value Forum, the Cwm Taf Mental Health Forum, the RCT Community Hwb Steering Group and

a green social prescribing event. One event worth highlighting includes the regional ‘Coproduction, Collaboration and Commissioning’ event held in May 2019 with Cwm Taf Morgannwg Regional Partnership Board which brought a range of partners together to help transform health and social care. The event we were most proud of was our third sector conference and AGM ‘Citizen Powered Communities’ in November 2019, which focused on how Interlink RCT can work with members and partners to ensure people and communities are fully involved in deciding and taking action on what matters in RCT.

The Interlink Training Programme continued to deliver a high number of high quality training opportunities over the year with 11 courses with 102 participants during 2019/2020. Courses included Safeguarding, Essential Training for Trustees, Accounts for the Non-Accountant, First Aid, Writing Better Bids and Impact Training. The percentage reporting improved understanding was 96%; confidence was 86% and knowledge was 98%.