It’s time to Make it Happen!

Our Make it Happen support offers are there to support areas that need help beyond their local networks to deliver their Big Local plan and are designed to help those areas identify local networks to tap into for future support.

There’s no requirement to access Make it Happen. If you have local contacts who can provide the support you need, we encourage you to use those networks and your funding to access that support.

Once you’ve discussed your needs as a partnership, we’d recommend doing the following so we can get you signed up to the right kind of support:

• Use the Make it Happen section of the Big Local support centre to familiarise yourself with the support offers and think through how they may help deliver your Big Local plan

• Chat to your Big Local area advisor or coordinator about your options and ask any questions
• You can even invite us to join your partnership meeting to discuss the support offers in more detail
• Or get in contact with us directly via support@localtrust.org.uk so we can get you started

Once we’ve had an initial conversation and identified the right support, we will ask you to fill out an EOI form before connecting you with our partner.

If you don’t see your partnership needs reflected in our offers, please do get in touch at support@localtrust.org.uk anyway and we can discuss your options.

We can support you to close out through several of our partner offers, which can help you deliver different aspects of your final Big Local plan and prepare to close your grant.

Several partnerships have approached us for particular support as they reach the final stages of Big Local. We recommended accessing support well in advance of when you are expected to close out, particularly if you’d like to access the following partner support.

Once we connect you with a support partner, a work plan will be developed based on your needs and requirements.

The level of support allocated to a partnership will depend on a few things, including:

• how critical the support is to the delivery of your plan
• the kind of support required
• the amount of support an area has accessed in the past
• the stage a partnership is at on the programme (i.e. areas reaching the end of the programme might need less support than those with much more to deliver)

You can request support from as many of our partners as you want, although we will take all of the above into account when allocating support. Make it Happen is intended to support and help and we would not want Big Local areas to feel overwhelmed. So, our advice is to be realistic about how much time the partnership can give. We recommend talking to us or your Big Local area advisor or coordinator in the first instance and try and set achievable timescale and targets.

Ahead of getting started with any of our partners, it’s really useful if you are clear on your priorities as a partnership and what you would like the support to help you deliver (e.g. a sharing your story / managing a community hub). That way, you can make the most of the support you get with the specialist support partner.