YouthBank provides small grants to fund young people’s ideas, projects and initiatives to benefit their own communities.

The young people control a ‘grant pot’ and encourage youth groups in their area to apply for funding in improve their projects. Argyll and Bute YouthBank is part of YouthBank Scotland, giving young people training and support to become young grant makers.

The project involves groups of local young people, supported by the council’s youth services team, awarding grant applications of up to £250 from other young people in their local area for projects that would be beneficial to communities and to the young people taking part.

Councillor Robin Currie, policy lead for Community and Culture, said the innovative project would benefit young people and the wider community. He said: “A key aim of the council is to provide opportunities for our young people to develop skills and access training which will enable them to get the most out of life and make a valuable contribution to our communities.

“YouthBank is unique in that it is the young people themselves who make the decisions about who receives the money and about how their YouthBank is managed and run. It is also about supporting and training the young people to be grant-makers and assessors whilst benefitting other young people and the wider community.” Argyll and Bute YouthBank gained its license in September 2013 and since then young people from across the authority have undertaken SVQ accredited Introduction to Grant Making and Developing Decision Making training. Over the course of the training they have decided on their Youthbank’s eligibility criteria, developed an application process, and a scoring and evaluation system.