The Know Your Neighbourhood (KYN) Fund is a £29 million package of funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), designed to widen participation in volunteering and tackle loneliness in 27 disadvantaged areas across England.

Libraries Connected is one of three delivery bodies working in partnership with Arts Council England to deliver £5 million of the KYN Fund to arts and culture organisations. The other organisations are the Association of Independent Museums (AIM) and Creative Lives.

Examples of projects that could be funded in libraries include employing a volunteer co-ordinator, providing additional pre-school activities, offering games for older people or extending opening hours to provide social activities. A key focus of the programme will be to generate and share learning on how people in disadvantaged areas can be supported to volunteer and improve their social connections, which will help to support sustained action beyond the lifetime of the fund and in other areas of the country.

The KYN Fund will run until March 2025, with successful projects starting in 2023-24 after a period of development. 

Here you can find a link to the DCMS website explaining how the areas were chosen.

Webinars

In September 2023, we hosted a knowledge sharing event for the project. You can watch it back in full on our YouTube channel.

Since then, we have hosted three more webinars showcasing the projects that are underway. You can view the full playlist here.