WIREDGOV

Bristol based charity Happy City is making more of its wellbeing measurement tools freely available to charities across the UK thanks to a £250,000 National Lottery grant from the Big Lottery Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.

Happy City will use the grant to update its ‘Happiness Pulse’. Developed in partnership with the New Economics Foundation, this interactive online survey paints a picture of a person’s wellbeing, helping to identify simple ways to increase their happiness. The survey asks people how they think and feel about their lives, what they do to improve their wellbeing and how they connect with others.

The tool will now be developed further so it can be used by organisations to measure the wellbeing of groups and communities. This upgraded version will increase the number of factors being looked at and allow charities to compile and analyse data using tailored dashboards. The tool will be freely available and training will be offered to more than 2000 charities on how to use it, helping them to better understand what works in their local area.

The National Lottery funding will also support Happy City to expand the use of its ‘Thriving Places Index’ across the UK and publish the results annually. The Index - which is currently only available in England and Wales - measures how well a place is promoting wellbeing. It looks at a range of elements including equality, sustainability and local conditions.

The Index has been designed to help local authorities and decision makers across all sectors to prioritise the wellbeing of communities in their planning, policies and commissioning. It has been piloted in five areas of Gwent in South East Wales, where it is being used to support cross-sector working.

Joe Ferns, UK Funding Director at the Big Lottery Fund, said: “Civil society organisations play an integral role in strengthening the wellbeing of people and communities across the UK, but having access to meaningful data is vital to their success. We’re pleased to be supporting Happy City’s ambition to create and share tools which are improving how the charity and voluntary sector can collect, use and share data and insights.”

Liz Zeidler, Co-founder and Chief Executive of Happy City, said: “This is a game-changer for our capacity to respond to the growing interest in wellbeing in every corner of the UK. These tools will help to challenge assumptions and change the goalposts of decisions makers around the UK, putting what really matters to people’s lives centre stage. We are delighted to be working with the Big Lottery Fund to strengthen the ability of the sector, and the communities it supports, to focus on what it means to thrive – together.”

The Big Lottery Fund distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes. Last year it awarded almost £713 million and supported almost 14,000 projects across the UK for health, education, environment and charitable purposes.

To find out more visit www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Contact:

Lilian Barratt: lilian.barratt@biglotteryfund.org.uk, 0207 211 1655
Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours media contact: 07867 500572

Notes to Editors:

• Happy City designed the Pulse in 2014 in partnership with the New Economics Foundation and a global Advisory Board, which included representatives from the Office of National Statistics UK National Well-being Programme, University of Cambridge Well-being Institute, Public Health England (PHE), Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
• To date the pulse has been ‘taken’ by over 16,000 individuals. 50 different organisations, from all sectors and ranging from small local to large organisations have used the pulse during its piloting phases.
• The Thriving Places Index was published for all 150 upper tier local authority areas in England in February 2018 and for the 22 in Wales in April 2018.

Happy City

Founded in 2010, Happy City is a small UK charity with a big mission: to ‘make what matters count’. It offers a place-based model of change that puts the wellbeing of current and future generations centre stage. It does this by developing new measures of progress and delivering training, projects and campaigns to help embed them into how places work.

www.happycity.org.uk 
www.thrivingplacesindex.org 
www.happinesspulse.org

The Big Lottery Fund

The Big Lottery Fund uses money raised by National Lottery players to help communities achieve their ambitions. From small, local projects to UK-wide initiatives, our funding brings people together to make a difference to their health, wellbeing and environment. Since June 2004 we have awarded £8.5 billion to projects that improve the lives of millions of people.