Projects and long-term support

In recent years we’ve worked alongside our Hardship Alliance partners to implement projects which will have a lasting impact for the borough. 

The group works together to prevent poverty, with aim of working towards ending it completely in our borough.

These projects in recent years help people with the cost of living now and aim to provide the foundations to reduce poverty in the long-term.

Hardship Fund

The Hardship Fund will deliver long term, high value projects designed to give a much greater value to our residents than the cost of the initial seed-funding investment.

More than £100,000 has already been awarded to voluntary organisations to support residents in the borough who are experiencing hardship. These include:

• The Bright Futures Fund awards funding to lower income students across the borough to enjoy extra-curricular activities.
• Removing Barriers Grants helped people with a low income in Wokingham Borough by removing financial obstacles to participating activities, through awarding funds to nine different local organisations
• Roots Community Store opened in February 2024
• Affordable Uniform For All helped improve access to no/low cost uniform and other essential learning tools
• Affordable For All ran a pilot with local schools on how to lower the cost of school day

Winter Warmer project

Using the Government’s Household Support Fund, the Hardship Alliance turned a £60,000 investment in energy efficient devices into an estimated £150,000 savings in winter 2022/23 alone. The project was repeated for winter 2023/24.

Thousands of items were provided to local families through the Winter Warmer project.

The project was coordinated by First Days Children’s Charity which distributed the items to local families and other groups who work with those who needed help.

It was made possible thanks to assessments by Citizens Advice Wokingham and First Days, as well Wokingham United Charities purchasing the items.

Surviving Winter Crowdfund

We teamed up with Wokingham United Charities and Berkshire Community Foundation for the Surviving Winter crowdfund.

Thanks to community donations and match funding in 2023, almost £70,000 has gone local organisations to help people with the cost of living. Funding was awarded in 14 grants in 2023 and 2024 to 13 different local organisations.

Our plan to make a difference

We have a plan to stop poverty in Wokingham Borough, which informed the projects listed above. This is outlined in our Tackling Poverty Strategy.

Our long term aspiration is doing everything we can to prevent poverty, working towards ending it completely in our borough. We are aiming to:

• Lessen the short-term effects of poverty
• Prevent more people falling into poverty
• Better support our residents living in poverty
• Enable residents to better address the barriers to overcoming poverty

This was created with The Hardship Alliance, leaders from the borough's voluntary and community sector, and other organisations from the area. The alliance was formed in 2022 and the members are:

• Age UK Berkshire 
• Citizens Advice Wokingham
• First Days Children's Charity
• Wokingham United Charities
• Wokingham Borough Council