The European Union (EU) has been a major funder of the voluntary and community sector through a variety of initiatives, although many groups have found this funding difficult to access. The process of applying for and managing EU funding can be very bureaucratic. Other barriers to these funds are that they require match funding (usually around 50%) and payments tend to be in arrears and to suffer delays. New co-financing initiatives have been introduced in recent years to ease these problems, where the EU funds are matched by a government agency and the organisation applying for funding can apply for 100% of the funding needed. Voluntary and community organisations can apply for European funding as individual organisations or as members of a consortium: the advice of experts is to try and bid within or access funds from a partnership if you can.

European funding is a world full of jargon and strange acronyms and it is not an easy area of funding to understand. This overview attempts to provide an introduction to it and some pointers on how to find out more.

The increase in membership of the European Union and the more pressing needs of newer member states means that richer members — including the UK — will receive less funding in future. A new round of European Funding programmes will run from 2007 until 2013 and the UK will receive around €9.4 billion (2004 prices), as compared to the €15.85 billion received 2000-2006.

The details of budgets in specific areas and at local level are still being worked on. It is expected that the first funding rounds under the 2007-2013 programme will be held in autumn 2007 and that project activity will start in early 2008. In the meantime, activity under the 2000-2006 programme will continue until mid-2008.