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Place-based funding

Neighbourhood Fund

We want to understand if and how empowering people to make decisions about their local neighbourhoods can prevent children from becoming involved in violence.

Read our ‘Building safer communities’ report

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Building safer communities

Introduction

We know that a lot of violent crime happens in very specific local areas. To make a difference, many believe that it’s essential to work with the people and organisations who live and work there – they know their communities best.

Through our Neighbourhood Fund we want to understand if and how empowering people to make decisions about their local neighbourhoods can prevent children from becoming involved in violence.

Our approach

Through our Neighbourhood Fund, we’re investing and building long-term partnerships in 5 hyper-local areas in England and Wales, where there are higher numbers of children and young people involved in crime and violence.

In each of these areas we’re aiming to understand the problems the community faces, then co-design, deliver and evaluate solutions that are both evidence-informed and responsive to their local needs.

There are four phases to our long-term investment:

  1. Feasibility (2-3 months)

We’ve commissioned a community research and co-design partner to work with us and statutory partners (like the local council, or violence reduction unit) in each local authority area. Together, they’ve identified the hyper-local area where crime is highly concentrated and where there’s opportunity for change. This may mean focusing on a housing estate, a local council ward, an area around a shopping centre or an area straddling two neighbourhoods. Our partners also work with other agencies, funders and commissioners to make sure that our Neighbourhood Fund work aligns with other violence reduction strategies in the area.

2. Discovery (6-12 months)

During this phase our community research and co-design partners worked with the local community to understand the causes of violence, making sure that their needs and aspirations are understood and reflected in decisions about the local project. They also developed local partnerships to better understand how the community is already being served and identify relevant voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations to work with.

3. Co-design solution (6-12 months)

With our community research and co-design partners we worked with the local community to develop an action plan to prevent children from becoming involved in violence. The plan is informed by the best available evidence of what works, while empowering communities to find, design and deliver solutions themselves. This stage was supported by an independent learning partner, who is responsible for sharing learning as the plan is put into practice.

4. Put the plan into action (up to five years)

Finally, we’re providing support and funding for up to five years for areas to implement the community’s plans. We’ve appointed a lead co-ordinator in each area who will be responsible for leading this work (in some cases this is the area’s community research and co-design partner).

We recognise that, as the plan progresses, things might need to change. Our learning partner has supported during the early stages to help areas throughout this stage, so that we’re able to learn what works, how it works and why.

We commissioned a systematic review to help us learn more about how best to deliver and evaluate place-based approaches to preventing violence.

Neighbourhood Fund – Round 1

Five hyper-local areas have been identified where young people are more likely to witness or be involved in crime:

  • Barkerend, an inner-city area of Bradford
  • Grangetown and Butetown, just south of the city of Cardiff
  • Cheetham Hill, north of Manchester city centre
  • Lozells- Newtown, an inner-city area in West Birmingham
  • Nelson, an area close to the town centre and seafront in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

To identify the broader geographical areas, we’ve tried to find out where (across England and Wales) there are higher numbers of children involved in crime and violence. However, there’s no single way to do this. In our report, Building safer neighbourhoods, we outline the methodology and data we used, and explain some of the judgements and trade-offs we made in identifying and choosing these areas. We hope that, by publishing our methods, we’ll provide transparency in the thinking behind our decisions.

Read our ‘Building safe neighbourhoods’ report

Our partners

Phase 1 | Feasibility – Co-Design

Below you’ll find details of the community research and co-design partners who we’ve commissioned to lead the work in each of the five areas selected for our Neighbourhood Fund.

Birmingham

  • Lead partner: BVSC (Birmingham Voluntary Service Council)
  • Funding: £127,801

Manchester

Bradford

Cardiff

Norfolk

Phase 2 | Delivery Phase ( up to 5 years)

Below you’ll find details of the lead co-ordinators who we’ve commissioned to implement the local action plans within the five areas selected for the first round of our Neighbourhood Fund.

Birmingham

Manchester

Bradford

Cardiff

Norfolk

Learning partners

Renaisi and Dartington Service Design Lab were commissioned as the learning partners to provide support and share learning across the 5 sites.

Evaluator partners

Nottingham Trent University and Liverpool John Moores University have been commissioned to evaluate the Neighbourhood Fund.

What’s next?

We are publishing yearly evaluation reports on our website. The final report will be published in 2029 and will be focused on the overall impact of the Neighbourhood Fund on reducing youth violence.

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© 2025 The Youth Endowment Fund Charitable Trust. Registered Charity Number: 1185413.