Sometimes the smallest grants make the biggest difference, and our recent evaluation of the Welcoming Spaces small grants scheme demonstrates this.

Cheshire Community Action’s latest evaluation of Cheshire West and Chester Council’s Welcoming Spaces Grant Scheme shows what can be unlocked by modest grants. In 2025–26, 33 organisations shared £37,610.50 in grants. The updated Social Value Engine assessment estimates that the programme generated £1.395 million in social value – £16.82 for every £1 spent – with more than 400 volunteers involved.

The case studies bring those figures to life. At Allostock Village Hall, part of a £1,200 grant helped transform a traditional older people’s party into an intergenerational Big Lunch, bringing more than 120 residents together for food, music and games. The same grant also supported additional Community Cuppa sessions, creating regular opportunities for neighbours in a rural community to connect.

At Utkinton Village Hall, a monthly shared meal has become a social lifeline for older residents. The Neuromuscular Centre in Winsford used its grant to provide accessible creative sessions, warmth, food, peer support and practical help for people with neuromuscular conditions and their carers.

These grants work because they reach trusted, locally rooted organisations and give them flexibility to respond to what communities actually need.

Photo above: Allostock Village Hall, Community Cuppa

[Main photo: Allostock Village Hall Big Lunch]

As CCA highlighted recently in our article: When grants become systems: a quiet risk worth naming, micro-grants can lose some of their power when processes become too centralised, complex or transactional. Volunteer-led groups need proportionate processes, local knowledge and relationships – not systems designed for much larger contracts.

The Welcoming Spaces Grant Scheme will not be running in 2026–27, making it even more important to recognise and capture what it achieved.

The evaluation leaves a strong legacy that CCA will continue to use to champion the value of small grant schemes. It is clear evidence that relatively small investments in trusted community organisations can generate significant social value, strengthen volunteering and bring people together.

We aim to give Cheshire communities a stronger voice by engaging with and supporting them in influencing the places, spaces and services that are important to them.

We work throughout Cheshire West & Chester, Cheshire East, Halton, and Warrington. Although we were originally founded to assist rural communities, in recent years, we have branched out to provide support in larger towns and their suburbs. 

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