New Board Member for BIG NI

• National Lottery

The Big Lottery Fund is pleased to announce the appointment of a new Northern Ireland Committee Member to make decisions on how National Lottery Good Cause funding is invested to improve the lives of local people.

Julie Harrison, a NI development consultant, joins NI Committee Chair Breidge Gadd and Committee members Paul Cavanagh, Claire Keatinge, Peter Osborne and Siobhan Craig to oversee a diverse range of funding programmes and activities to ensure that National Lottery funding makes a difference and impacts on the lives of those most in need.

Julie has worked with a wide range of community and voluntary sector organisations in Northern Ireland over the past 15 years including Making Belfast Work and the National Lottery Charities Board and as an independent consultant since 1998.

She said:

"Having worked in the community and voluntary sector for many years I can see how the Big Lottery Fund's mission to improve the lives of people most in need has resulted in the delivery of some excellent projects.

"I have already been out to visit a number of projects this summer which has shown me the potential Big Lottery Fund has to lever in other resources and encourage other agencies to form partnerships that add real value to projects. I am delighted to be appointed on to the Committee and am looking forward to working with my new colleagues."

Julie's professional experience includes the design of monitoring and evaluation frameworks, appraisal of funding applications to the EU Special Support Programmes, evaluation of development programmes and facilitation of local initiatives. Her clients include central Government Departments and Agencies, Local Councils, voluntary sector organisations and neighbourhood community groups.

Welcoming the new addition to the Committee Big Lottery Fund NI Chair Breidge Gadd said:

"I am looking forward to working with Julie and utilising her expertise to make important decisions on projects that will have a positive impact on communities through Northern Ireland.

"Julie also joins at an exciting time when we are developing a strategic framework for our work up to 2015 when we will be considering what we have learnt from our work so far and establishing a focus for our future funding so we can support projects that make a real difference to local communities. On behalf of the UK Board I would like to welcome her to the Committee."

The Big Lottery Fund's NI Committee is responsible to strategy, policy, planning and management of programmes in Northern Ireland within an overall strategic and financial framework determined by the UK Board.

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