Community Story: Coventry & Warwickshire Co-operative Development Agency

For our latest feature, we spoke with another recent recipients of a the Community Matters Fund (Future Skills) 2026 from National Grid , the Coventry & Warwickshire Co-operative Development Agency. Luke Upton spoke to Mandy Bygrave, their Operations Manager to find out all about the impact of the funding, the work they're doing, and what this support means for their community.

Luke Upton (LU): Thanks for taking the time to speak with us today. To get us started, could you tell us a little about the origins of Coventry & Warwickshire CDA and how the organisation has developed its services and support for the community over the years?

Mandy Bygrave (MB): Coventry & Warwickshire Co-operative Development Agency (CDA) is a not for profit organisation that is community-led. We help to nurture and strengthen local communities. Our primary aim is to help people to help themselves. We are deeply embedded in local communities and our projects are delivered in local community venues, making them accessible to the whole community. Our projects are designed to complement community need, and we involve the community in their development. We offer employability support, Social Enterprise support, and general community projects, e.g. Money management. We target our employment projects at those furthest from the job market including the economically inactive, single parents, prison leavers, those with a disability and over 50's

LU: Keeping busy then! What have you been focusing on lately?

MB: Always! Lately we have focused on our holistic employment support projects, projects that help community members with the cost of living crisis this includes projects that support locals to budget and manage their money. We are continuing to work with local communities to determine their needs, and this has led to the development of Coventry Bike Project. We are now looking at other projects that help to recycle goods for use by those that may be disadvantaged.

LU: You’ve just received funding from the Community Matters Fund (Future Skills) 2026 from National Grid and Localgiving. Can you tell us some more about the project, what it will help fund and what it aims to deliver.

MB: The Making changes project will champion local skills and employment by providing an holistic solution. The project aims to remove barriers and move closer to employment and increase skills. A Journey Guide will support participants on their journey to work and/ or training by removing barriers, e.g. low confidence, no access to childcare. Participants will have an initial assessment to identify any gaps and barriers to move them towards employment and training.

The following solutions will be offered: Confidence training and motivation supported by a confidence building program, employment training including CV writing, interview techniques and job searching, practical training e.g. food hygiene, access to digital skills training  via learn my way IT sessions, access to voluntary work or work placements and support to access any required training

These interventions will move participants closer to employment and/ or training. Participants will become economically active by overcoming obstacles that have kept them from work. So we’d like to say a big thank you to National Grid for making this possible through the Community Matters Fund.

The outputs achieved include: 65 Participants supported, 60 supported to gain employment skills, 45 engaged in job searching, 35 referred to basic skills training, 35 accessed work skills training, 40, 35 have increased confidence, 16 gain volunteering experience and 8 are supported to gain employment.

LU: How important is this kind of grant funding to your organisation?

MB: The grant funding is very important to CDA. So again a thank you to National Grid and Localgiving for this support.  Without the funding we would not be able to provide an employment support service in Nuneaton for those that are hardest to reach. Currently funding for employment services is very limited and many people are seeing their employment services end or at a minimum decline. Those that are furthest from the job market need locally based holistic employment service.

LU: As we always like to ask our community members, more money aside, what would help you most? 

MB: It would be helpful to CDA if their work was promoted extensively. Raising our profile will enable us to partner with larger organisations on future projects. Delivering a successful project will also add to our track record and will be useful when applying for future funding.

The funding has been very useful to continue offering some support in the absence of government funding for localised employment support.  It would also be helpful if National Grid could promote the need for community holistic employment support to other major stakeholders.

LU: Brilliant, is there anything else you'd like to inform our readers about before we finish up?

MB: The project is going very well with over 30 people already signed up and worked with us to update their curriculum vitae. This has already resulted in two people gaining employment and 18 have started training on courses such as Food Hygiene level 2. These are accessible on our training platform. Six have gained volunteering experience with some already helping others to job search whilst looking for employment. Volunteers have also attended the Armed Forces Day to promote CDA services, and we are currently organising a litter pick for our volunteers to be able to support and improve their local community.

LU: Great, thank you so much for taking to share your work with our readers.

Find out more about the CWCDA here.

For the latest on the Community Matters Fund click here. 

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