What is the Know Your Neighbourhood Fund?
Between January 2023 and March 2025, the Know Your Neighbourhood (KYN) Fund invested up to £30 million to widen participation in volunteering and tackle loneliness in 27 disadvantaged areas across England.
Between January 2023 March 2025, UK Community Foundations (UKCF) managed £15 million of funding, delivered through nine participating community foundations.
Originally scheduled to end in March 2025, in April 2025 the KYN Fund was extended to run until March 2026, with up to an additional £4.5 million of funding, of which UK Community Foundations managed £2.3 million.
Between January 2023 and March 2026, nine community foundations distributed a total of 190 grants between January 2023 and March 2026 to local community-led projects supporting volunteering, social connection and community cohesion.
The programme engaged a total of 144,632 participants across its funding streams.
Local delivery through Heart of England Community Foundation
As part of this national partnership, Heart of England Community Foundation worked alongside local partners to support community‑led activity in Wolverhampton.
Between January 2023 and March 2025, Heart of England Community Foundation distributed 13 grants, supporting local projects focused on volunteering, connection and participation within the community.
| Grant Recipient | Project Activity | Amount Awarded |
| Access to Business | To provide volunteering opportunities and a social group for up to 110 people. | £147,010.00 |
| Age UK Wolverhampton | To trial and develop effective methods for identifying isolated older people, and developing ‘buddying roles’ for volunteers. | £121,570.00 |
| All Saints Action Network LTD | To appoint a part-time Volunteer and Development Worker for two years to develop a stronger volunteer base within ASAN. | £131,014.00 |
| Aspiring Futures C.I.C. | Towards engagement and support activities for women. | £55,448.00 |
| Bilston Resource Centre | To deliver an outreach programme that will recruit and train retired professionals and business owners to become volunteers to mentor and support community volunteers. | £87,497.00 |
| Gazebo Theatre In Education Company Ltd | Towards offering volunteering opportunities within Gazebo Theatre and as placements arranged with other local organisations. | £104,223.00 |
| Motive8 Youth C.I.C | Young people will undertake accredited training as sports coaches, and then deliver social action projects within their communities with the support of mentors. | £62,910.00 |
| St. George’s House Charity | Towards a support service for men centred around crisis intervention, recovery and promoting self-help. | £70,624.00 |
| The Refugee and Migrant Centre Ltd | Towards providing English classes for refugees at their centre, as well as basic IT and customer service skills provision, and job seeking skills | £48,234.00 |
| The Refugee and Migrant Centre Ltd – uplift award | Uplift awarded for continuation. Towards providing English classes for refugees at their centre, as well as basic IT and customer service skills provision, and job seeking skills | £43,937.00 |
| TLC College | Towards their comprehensive volunteer training programmes and language workshops. | £123,670.90 |
| Wildside Activity Centre | To recruit vulnerable people to work together to identify small green spaces and then work with local residents to improve these. | £67,413.00 |
| Wolverhampton Voluntary & Community Action | To deliver workshops, initially themed around art or creative content, but gradually developed to meet the needs and interests of lonely and isolated beneficiaries. | £58,871.08 |
| Wolverhampton Volunteers | To help improve the volunteering offer and increase volunteering take up and capacity within local organisations. Those that take up volunteering will see an improvement in their health and wellbeing and participating will help combat social isolation and loneliness in our local community. | £50,000.00 |
Independent report shares learning from successful approaches
A key focus of the KYN Fund has been to generate and share learning on how people in disadvantaged areas can be supported to volunteer and improve their social connections, which will help to support sustained action beyond the lifetime of the fund.
This independent report explores evaluation findings from KYN Fund delivery between January 2023 and March 2025.
It found that the KYN Fund successfully engaged people new to volunteering. Over half of volunteers (52%) reported they were volunteering for the first time through KYN‑funded activity.
Disabled people and those with long‑term health conditions were strongly represented. Nearly half of participants (48%) reported a long‑term disability or health condition, compared to 18% nationally.
The evaluation also found that the KYN Fund created conditions that supported participation by people at higher risk of chronic loneliness. ‘14% of participants reported feeling lonely often or always, compared to 7% nationally.’
At the same time, the evaluation highlights limits in how loneliness can be measured, noting that ‘there are recognised limitations in measuring loneliness which mean it can be challenging to capture impact in this area.’
Learning from the programme points to the importance of flexible, sustained funding approaches when working with communities experiencing chronic loneliness. The evaluation highlights the value of flexible delivery, sufficient setup time and multi‑year approaches to building trust and engagement.
The evaluation also identifies the role of place‑based delivery and local partnerships in supporting engagement and positive local outcomes. Local knowledge, trusted relationships and partnerships supported participation and were associated with improved feelings of belonging and neighbourhood connection. ‘Local partnerships, trusted relationships and community‑based assets were central to engaging participants.’
The report offers recommendations around recruitment and community engagement, project delivery and collaboration and evaluation approaches, which can be found on the gov.uk website.
Reports supported by UKCF throughout the KYN Fund can be found here.