AskingBristol’s ambition is to show how to level-up the Third Sector in a city or region. Greater Bristol has over 4000 registered charities, but it also has thousands of smaller community and voluntary groups that are a backbone of the city providing help and support in every way imaginable.
AskingBristol works with four types of ask: Things, Time, Expertise and Services. The approach to Things is “MultiVarious Giving” – the idea that if an individual, business, organization or foundation has annual charitable giving, that a portion of the annual giving can be divided into smaller amounts and given, generally with a chosen theme each year, to buy specific Things for any charity or voluntary/community group. This approach has been pioneered with the High Sheriff of Bristol’s Fund (BYCA – Bristol Youth and Community Action) and Bristol Curry Club (see previous posts).
Progress is being made, with organizations and businesses seeing the power of this approach to level up across the region and support every charity and voluntary/community group according to their needs – Burges Salmon being pioneers in this regard. And of course the smaller the group, generally the smaller the ask they are making. The High Sheriff of Bristol’s Fund showed how £200 or £300 could make all the difference.