NCVO, with funding from the Cabinet Office, has launched a new website which aims to provide details of a wide range of funding opportunities. This will compete with the Directory of Social Change range of websites, but unlike these access to the FundingCentral website is currently free of charge. Unlike the DSC websites, FundingCentral covers grants, loans and contracting opportunities in the one website.

The website promises to be a comprehensive site with information on funders, and resources and advice all in one place. In addition there are a range of tools (some from the sustainable funding project) and good links to other websites. Some sections of the website will not launch until September.

Initial thoughts.

Unfortunately it looks as if the sections that have launched may have done so a little too soon.An initial attempt at a guided search found that:

• One of the scripts ran very slowly and had to be abandoned
• It wasn't possibly to restrict search results by borough
• Although there are supposedly 4,000 opportunities available a lot of funders that would be expected failed to show up in the search results. These included large funders as well as local funders.
• Some of the links in the search reports are not properly displayed
• Some of the factsheets appear to still be in draft form
• It wasn't possible to say how much funding you were looking for

The advanced search provided more search options, had the same problem with scripts and didn't work.

It would have been nice to have seen RSS feeds, especially for news and approaching deadlines rather than having to visit the site on a regular basis.

Once these teething problems are sorted out it promises to be a very useful resource. Have a look now, there are good links and sources of advice in place, but you'll probably need to wait until the autumn for the rest.