This research will inform our support and guidance to customers whose grants or applications involve building, restoring or taking ownership or control of community facilities.

It will also help us be better informed in our ongoing funding decision practice and in the development of new funding programmes with a community facilities element.

In addition, we intend to share this research with key stakeholders, principally other funders, third sector infrastructure bodies and Welsh Government, to inform the wider debate about asset transfer and community ownership of assets.

The objectives of the research are to: Identify and summarise existing evidence on managing and sustaining community facilities Generate new evidence about current approaches to managing and sustaining community facilities, common challenges and pitfalls, and conversely effective solutions, promising innovations and good practice Identify and/or develop case studies that highlight key lessons for effectively managing and sustaining community facilities Understand how challenges and solutions in the running of community facilities are affected by local and contextual factors.

For example, the approaches that are effective in ensuring long-term sustainability will be different for a community building in an affluent area with a large retired population, compared to a more deprived area with a large working age population and a less established history of volunteering Explore the difference made by community assets and understand some of the ways in which effective and sustainable community facilities enable communities to thrive Make recommendations about what steps could be taken by the Fund and, where relevant, by local and national government, other funders, third sector infrastructure bodies or other stakeholders to support effective and sustainable community assets.