We are here to support, promote and develop voluntary and community action in Middlesbrough

Resources

Visiting MVDA

We’re aware that some visitors are still being directed to our old Corporation Road address when using Google Maps. Although we've updated our location, the app is unfortunately still showing incorrect directions for some users.

We apologise for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.

While we continue working to resolve the issue with Google, we've created a handy PDF guide with clear directions to our new office at Broadcasting House.

Economic and Cyber Crime May 2025 Briefing

NEROCU (North East Regional Organised Crime Unit) has released its May 2025 Monthly Threat Update, highlighting current economic and cyber crime trends across the North East and UK.

Posters for new Macmillan pilot in Middlesbrough

A new pilot scheme is underway in Middlesbrough to provide financial support for patients diagnosed with cancer. Led by Macmillan, the initiative has already helped 37 patients access grants and financial reviews.

Promotional posters are currently on display in locations across the town, including the train station and social media channels. Organisations are encouraged to support the campaign by displaying posters in relevant areas to help raise awareness among patients.

There is hope that the scheme will soon be extended across the wider North East region.

For more information, please get in touch with Lauren Farrow: Lauren.farrow1@nhs.net

Protecting Charities From Harm - Compliance Toolkit

How to safeguard your charity from terrorism, fraud and other abuse. The government has a toolkit of guidance, advice and other resources to help charity trustees put in place good standards of governance and accountability in place to safeguard their charities from terrorism, fraud and other forms of abuse.

Going Green Together tool

Going Green Together is a movement to supports VCSE organisations and communities in the North East to take action on the climate emergency. It has a web tool to help organisations to take their first climate action steps and share their action with others in the following areas: 

Energy, Waste, Engagement, Food, Travel, Office.

Visit www.goinggreentogether.org

Templates for developing successful funding applications

Keda Consulting has developed the Lego Approach to trust fundraising, which helps you to think about your application methodically. It provides helpful cues and a structured format that will suit many applications.

https://www.kedaconsulting.co.uk/2019/09/26/the-lego-approach-to-trust-fundraising/

There is a simple toolkit to help you to being to inject the Lego Approach into your own trust fundraising which you can download for free here

 

NCVO has written a simple model to help Voluntary and Community Organisations to create eye-catching funding applications. Receiving the funding and support you need can often be a difficult task. In light of that, writing a proposal letter for a not for profit organisation is all about adapting to your audience. It doesn’t matter who you are writing to and in what capacity as long as you abide by the general principles and address your target reader properly

https://knowhow.ncvo.org.uk/how-to/how-to-write-a-catchy-proposal-for-a-non-profit-organization

 

 

Snowball has provided a very good template to help you write funding applications that will improve your success rate by getting the right information across to the funding officers and grants panels who will have to read your work and others and then decide how to share out their allocation of money.

https://snowballfundraising.com/grant-proposal-template/

 

Please use these templates to help you write funding applications that get you the grants you need to make things happen. Use the Who’s who page to find a staff member to provide you with any further information or support you want.

How to encrypt a UBS stick

How safe is your USB stick? Many people often need to store important information such as client’s personal details, and transfer it between devices, but what would happen if you lost it?

Ruth Barnes at MVDA has created some simple instructions on how to encrypt a USB stick for Windows users. 

Easyread coronavirus information

Navca has shared this useful easyread information about the coronavirus situation. Please download or share it where appropriate.

South Tees Social Prescribing Business Case

As Social prescribing is beginning to get more and more air time in terms of meetings, events and publications here at MVDA we thought it might be of interest to share with you some of our early thinking that shaped the development of the South Tees Social Prescribing Business Case which we developed way back in 2014/15.

However, it is fair to say that this thinking is still the basis of social prescribing in general and we hope you find this information helpful and useful.  The information includes:

  • The Executive Summary from the original Business Case
  • Our concept delivery model
  • A performance framework
  • A possible referral pathway

Research tools for measuring impact on wellbeing

Here are some tools you can use to measure the impact of your work on the wellbeing of the people involved with your organisation. Remember to take your baseline data before you begin work with the person.

These websites contain useful instruction on how to use ICECAP O and Warwick Edinburgh measures:

ICECAP O

Warwick Edinburgh