Cultivating Black Women for Social Change
Soul Purpose 360 CIC is celebrating today after being awarded over £200,000 in National Lottery funding to support its work with marginalised national Black & minoritised women across the UK. Palma Black has been running the social enterprise since 2020, supported by over 30 volunteers. She started the project following a personal tragedy which fuelled a desire to support women to overcome personal obstacles and challenges to live fulfilled lives and give back to society.
The group now boasts over 600 members and a growing network of local Soul Purpose 360 groups. Local groups are coordinated by volunteer facilitators and have been a lifeline to many Black and minoritised women experiencing social isolation, due to a plethora of personal circumstances, and for those searching for a supportive and empowering network of women that share similar life experiences, dreams, and aspirations.
From Left - Davina Brown. Sharon Douglas, Palma Black (CEO), Francine Daley , Esha Babatunji, Rebecca Roache (Trustee)
The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK will enable Soul Purpose 360 to recruit much-needed staff to nurture a national, community-based cohort of Black and minoritised women change agents, through The Self-Leadership and Professional Community Development Programme. Beneficiaries will lead social impact initiatives in their local communities across the UK.
The programme will offer one-to-one and group coaching, mentoring, and training to help their members overcome personal challenges and obstacles and gain the confidence to realise their community projects and in doing so, bring benefits to many more in their communities. At the same time, the member-led social enterprise will be able to establish more Soul Purpose 360 local groups in towns and cities nationwide, bringing the Black Women’s Networking & Empowerment Circles within reach of more women and thereby increasing their membership.
Soul Purpose 360 founder Palma Black said:
“The funding from the National Lottery is a game changer for the social enterprise. It will go a long way in helping us to fulfil our mission to motivate, inspire, and imbue confidence in Black and minoritised women in the UK, to enable them to contribute positively to their communities through their own personal growth. We are grateful to the people who play the National Lottery – it is their hopes and dreams that fuel our aspirations”.
Soul Purpose 360 member and programme graduate Francine Daley said:
“This is amazing news from The National Lottery. With the support from Soul Purpose 360 I have been able to improve my mental and physical health and used my experience to set up my own social enterprise 360 Lifestyle Support Network which educates and inspires individuals to change their lifestyle to create a better version of themselves”.
The differences that this funded project will make are:
• Increased confidence and resilience to 66 Black and Asian women.
• Supporting 44 members to strengthen their community projects.
• Enabling 55 more women to benefit from online training sessions.
• Reducing social isolation for members, improving mental health, community spirit and cohesion, reducing NHS costs.
• Building stronger families through personal development techniques.
• Empowering 16 local groups to influence statutory and voluntary sector services.
• Increased connections between statutory and community service providers.
• Increase membership to 2,750 members by 2026.
The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its new strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030. As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year The National Lottery Community Fund was able to distribute over half a billion pounds (£615.4 million) of life-changing funding to communities.
To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk
Media enquiries:
Soul Purpose 360 is a Soul Purpose 360 is a registered Community Interest Company created to provide coaching and mentoring to support, encourage and nurture Black women in the UK to positively, and effectively impact their communities through active participation.
For more information or to get involved, email soulpurpose360@gmail.com or visit www.soulpurpose360.co.uk/croydon
Notes to Editors:
About ‘The National Lottery Community Fund’
• We are the largest non-statutory community funder in the UK – community is at the heart of our purpose, vision and name.
• We support activities that create resilient communities that are more inclusive and environmentally sustainable and that will strengthen society and improve lives across the UK.
• We’re proud to award money raised by National Lottery players to communities across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and to work closely with government to distribute vital grants and funding from key Government programmes and initiatives.
As well as responding to what communities tell us is important to them, our funding is focused on four key missions, supporting communities to:
1. Come together
2. Be environmentally sustainable
3. Help children and young people thrive
4. Enable people to live healthier lives.
Thanks to the support of National Lottery players, we distribute around £500 million a year through 10,000+ grants and plan to invest over £4 billion of funding into communities by 2030. We’re privileged to be able to work with the smallest of local groups right up to UK-wide charities, enabling people and communities to bring their ambitions to life.
National Lottery players raise over £30 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. Since The National Lottery began in 1994, £47 billion has been raised and more than 670,000 individual grants have been made across the UK - the equivalent of around 240 National Lottery grants in every UK postcode district.
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