NUM has been awarded £450,000.00 through a new grant from the UK’s biggest funder! the National Lottery Community Fund to scale up our safety platform for sex industry workers who are victims of crime across the UK. We are one of 8 organisations have been successful within this round and will collectively receive £3.4 million to help us grow our digital capabilities, particularly around our operations and service delivery.
Joe Ferns, UK Knowledge and Portfolio Director at The National Lottery Community Fund said: “In a digital society it’s important that charities and community organisations are not only able to adapt to be fit for the future but can harness the power of digital to identify new opportunities to improve services to support more people. Now, thanks to National Lottery players, these organisations can increase their digital capacity to have a greater impact in communities and support our sector to thrive in the digital age.”
NUM aims to use digital solutions to achieve our mandate of ending violence against sex industry workers by reducing/preventing fatalities and victimisation. Funding will be used to enhance our digital services and we will work with the Research and Development (R&D) Team industry experts and our broader membership so they can lead in the creation, testing and rolling out innovative features and services for diverse sex industry workers. This will ensure that NUM digital services are grounded in the safety needs associated with the types of work and ways of working across sex industries.
CEO, Dr. Raven Bowen said: “We are ecstatic about receiving these funds to create a digital community by, for and with sex industry workers. Our new digital platform will house new services and mechanisms and support information sharing to benefit all of our stakeholder groups: sex industry workers, police and front-line services. By investing in NUM, the National Community Lottery Fund joins us in sending a clear message that sex industry workers are valued members of our communities who deserve the resources necessary to be safe.”
In addition to the grant, NUM and our R&D Team will have access to a network of supporters made up of Doteveryone, CAST, Shift, Snook, The Dot Project, and a set of coaches and mentors.
For more information contact www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk