Published Thursday 25 April 2019 at 13:55
Funding opportunities greater than £100,000
Capital grants for arts and cultural organisations
Arts and cultural organisations have until the 14th May 2019 to apply for capital grants of between £100,000 and £499,999 to improve their buildings and equipment as well as their capacity to engage with digital audiences. The funding is available to properly constituted arts and/or cultural organisations based in England. This includes but is not limited to National Portfolio Organisations, National Portfolio consortium partners, arts organisations, museums, libraries, Music Education Hubs, universities and local authority service departments.
The funding is being made available through the Arts Council England’s Capital Small Grants Programme.
The types of activities that can be funded include:
- Buying assets such as furniture, equipment, musical instruments and vehicles, where these will support the delivery of arts activity.
- Improving existing arts facilities to enhance access to and enjoyment of arts and culture by disabled people and those with special educational needs.
- Building work to improve an existing arts and cultural building, provided all relevant statutory approvals (e.g. full planning permission, listed building consent, outline planning permission with full reserved matters resolved etc.) have been applied for at the time of application.
- Purchasing a freehold interest or a finance lease for their existing premises.
- Installing new technologies and upgrading buildings to deliver increased production and broadcast capacity.
- Buying digital and broadcast equipment such as cables, cameras or screens.
- Purchasing or developing box office, ticketing, sales and customer relationship management systems where the assets will benefit the widest possible range of partner organisations and support shared approaches to building larger audiences for arts and culture.
- Environmental sustainability costs including installing or retrofitting sustainable technologies or upgrading existing building fabric to enhance thermal performance.
- Professional fees associated with capital spending on the project.
- VAT that you cannot recover from HM Revenue and Customs.
Applicants are strongly advised to discuss your project with your Arts Council area office before submitting an expression of interest or making an application. Please contact the Customer Services team enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk or call them on 0161 934 4317.
Funding for community sports facilities
Sports clubs, local authorities, schools and community organisations can apply for grants of between £1,000 and £150,000 to enhance local sports and recreational facilities.
The funding which is being provided through Sport England’s Community Asset Fund can be used to enhance traditional sports facilities as well as outdoor spaces like canal towpaths, woodlands and open spaces etc. that can be used as part of an active lifestyle.
Statutory bodies and education establishments will specifically need to:
- Provide a minimum of pound-for-pound partnership funding;
- Demonstrate the strategic need for their project proportionate to the scale of investment requested;
- Limit requests to a maximum of £150,000 within any 12-month period.
Sport England typically expects their awards to be either:
- Small-scale investments typically ranging from £1,000 to £15,000. These will address emergency works due to something like storm or flood damage, or something totally unexpected that is stopping people from being able to stay active right now.
- Medium-scale investments typically ranging from between £15,000 to £50,000. These will address more substantial changes. This might be an upgrade to an existing facility or developing a new space in the community.
By exception, Sport England will consider larger investments ranging from £50,000 to £150,000. This will be when organisations can demonstrate a considerable impact or are targeting under-represented groups. They are also unlikely to have received funding from Sport England previously.
This is a rolling programme and applications can be submitted at any time.
Funding opportunities between £25,000 and £100,000
Funding to strengthen the Criminal Justice Sector
The Lloyds Bank Foundation has announced that grants of £30,000 to £300,000 (for projects lasting up to three years) are available to voluntary sector organisations to support work in the criminal justice system. The funding is available for work that is focused on influencing positive change in policy and practice by:
- supporting the specialist voluntary sector to operate, become stronger and to speak up within the current very difficult prisons and probation environment;
- improving the policy and operating environment for smaller charities, particularly by seeking to influence the new probation system;
- influencing work further “upstream” in the criminal justice system to help divert and reduce people entering prison in the first place;
- influencing support for specific demographic groups within the criminal justice system.
To be eligible for funding applicant organisations need to:
- Have an income of under £2 million;
- Are committed to measuring impact and adaptive learning, reflecting on progress and adapting projects in real time as necessary
- Are willing to work with a highly engaged funder and within a cohort of grant holders.
The closing date for submitting Expression of Interest form is the 31st May 2019.
Expressions of interest should be emailed to: policy@lloydsbankfoundation.org.uk
Loan funding available to make community sports organisations more sustainable
The Sporting Capital Fund is a loan funding opportunity for community sports organisations who want to make a difference in the community through sport, physical activity or in a sport setting and want to grow and become more sustainable by generating more or new income.
Unsecured loans of £50,000 to £150,000, repayable over 3 to 5 years are available to help organisations develop new projects, operations and revenue streams and can be used for projects and activities such as:
- Equipment to support revenue streams
- Recruitment, training and deployment of staff and volunteers
- Equipment to support business functions, including finance, project management and governance
- Other operating costs
If needed, a repayment holiday of up to 24 months may be available, giving projects time to generate sustainable revenue before starting to repay the loan.
Loans will not cover “bricks and mortar” capital i.e. a new roof, but could be an investment, for example, to support a community café as a new revenue stream and pay for café kit and equipment, training deployment of new staff and volunteers, management support to get the café operating and funding towards marketing the new venture.
A wide range of organisations can apply from community sports clubs to social enterprises, charities and profit-with-purpose businesses that deliver sport and physical activity.
Where appropriate, grant funding through the Access Reach Fund, may be available for organisations that need support to get ready to take on repayable investment. This fund offers small grants to charities and social enterprises who are looking to raise investment with an approved social investor – called Access Points. The grant will be used to help them close a deal or secure an investment. Applications can be submitted at any time.
Funding for projects that improve people’s lives
The Henry Smith Charity provides grants of between £20,000 and £60,000 per year for up to three years to charitable organisations (charities and not-for-profit organisations, including social enterprises) that help people when other sources of support have failed, are inappropriate, or are simply not available.
The charity has six funding priorities that describe the work they support and how they want to bring about change for the most disadvantaged people in the greatest need. These are:
- Help at a critical moment – Helping people to rebuild their lives following a crisis, critical moment, trauma or abuse.
- Positive choices – Helping people, whose actions or behaviours have led to negative consequences for themselves and others, to make positive choices.
- Accommodation / housing support – Enabling people to work towards or maintain accommodation.
- Employment and training – Supporting people to move towards or gain employment.
- Financial inclusion, rights and entitlements – Supporting people to overcome their financial problems and ensure that they are able to claim their rights and entitlements.
- Support networks and family – Working with people to develop improved support networks and family relationships
Grants can cover running costs, salaries and project costs for organisations that can demonstrate a track record of success and evidence the effectiveness of their work. Eligible organisations include charities and not-for-profit organisations (including social enterprises) in the UK with a turnover of £50,000 – £2 million (in exceptional circumstances up to £5 million).
Applications can be submitted at any time and decisions are usually made within 6 months.
Funding to make community spaces more sustainable
The Co-op Foundation is offering interest free loans for enterprising ideas to improve community spaces. Community organisations that manage community buildings and outdoor spaces such as parks and community centres; etc. which are for the use of the whole community can apply for loans to grow their trading activities to generate more sustainable income.
The Co-op Foundation can offer:
- Interest-free loans of up to £50,000 towards viable business ideas that will benefit the whole community – particularly those facing greater challenges.
- No repayments for the first year, while your trading activities are developing.
- If you are based in a more deprived area, or your work mainly benefits more disadvantaged members of the community, we might also be able to offer some grant funding alongside a loan.
Applicants will need to fill out an expression of interest and applications can be submitted at any time.
Funding opportunities under £25,000
Funding to support education in disadvantaged areas
Grants are available to support schools and registered charities that wish to undertake educational work with children and young people in disadvantaged areas.
The British and Foreign Schools Society (BFSS) normally makes grants for educational projects totaling about £600,000 in any one year. The majority (85% of grants) are made to charities and educational bodies (with charitable status). Schools wishing to apply need to have either charitable status or “exempt charity” status.
Previous projects supported include:
- Teens and Toddlers, a charity based in Southwark London received a grant of £19,500 towards the cost of two 18-week youth development programmes to help raise the aspirations of at risk young people.
- The Afghan Association Paiwand received a grant of £33,240 for a new Saturday school in the deprived area of Colindale, North London which focus on maths and English in partnership with local authorities and mainstream schools.
- The Sensory Trust received a grant of £3,000 for a project aimed at developing sensory nature tools for schools aimed at students with learning disabilities
The next closing date for applications is the 19th August 2019. For further information on the types of grants awarded by BFSS both in the UK and internationally, please click here
Applications will be considered from educational or training institutions which have UK charitable status or, in the case of schools, colleges, universities and Churches, “exempt charity” status.
The Society also offers a small number of grants for organisations and individuals through its Subsidiary Trusts. Eligibility criteria depend on area of residence and/or particular field of educational activity.
Equipment grants for disabled and disadvantaged young people
Schools and not for profit organisations have the opportunity to apply for funding through the Wooden Spoon Society’s Capital Grants programme. Wooden Spoon is the British and Irish Rugby charity which supports projects help mentally, physically disadvantaged children. Each year the charity supports around 70 projects.
Through the programme funding is available for:
- Buildings and extensions
- Equipment & activity aids
- Sensory rooms and gardens
- Playgrounds and sports areas
- Soft playrooms.
Since being founded in 1983, Wooden Spoon has made grants of over £24 million to more than 500 projects in the British Isles.
Projects funded in the past have included:
- Ashmount School in Leicestershire, which received a grant of £13,500 towards a sensory room.
- Enfield Heights Academy in London which received a grant of £23,000 to improve its play areas.
- The Colehill & Wimborne Youth & Community Centre which received a grant of £8,000 towards a wheelchair lift.
Applications can be made at any time and applicants should contact their regional volunteer group. Subject to an application being approved by Wooden Spoon Trustees, the Society requires a minimum of one Wooden Spoon membership to be taken out by a representative of the applicant organisation.
Funding to develop an effective web presence
The Transform Foundation provides grants for charities and not for profit organisations operating for the public good to develop an effective social media and web presence with the aim of developing future funding streams.
The Foundation has two funding programmes:
- A Facebook Grant programme (which provides £5,000 of funding to spend on Facebook advertising, with potential scale-up funding of up to £10,000)
- A Website Grant Programme (which provides a funding package of up to £18,000 to cover the upfront costs of a new charity-specific website including strategy, design, development and training).
The Transform Foundation specifically target mid-sized organisations with a turnover of £350,000 – £30 million; or those organisations that have the internal resources to follow-up the Transform Foundation grant with internal investments.
There is a two stage application process. Stage 1 is a simple online form to check eligibility criteria and that the applicant has a clear, measurable plan for deploying the funding to generate income or impact. Stage 2 consists of a face to face or online meeting with the Foundation or their partners. Decisions are usually made within 21 days of the stage 2 meeting. Applications for Stage 1 applications can be made at any time.
PRS Music Foundation Composers’ Fund
The Performing Rights Society (PRS) for Music Foundation, the UK’s leading funder of new music across all genres, has announced that a new funding round to its Composers’ Fund has opened for applications.
The Composers’ Fund recognises the need for composers to have direct access to funding at pivotal stages in their career. It invites composers to make the case for support of any activity that would enable them to make a significant step change in their career.
Grants can be for up to £10,000 and it is anticipated that the Foundations will make 10 – 15 awards a year. The fund is open to composers with a strong track record in their field who are at a point in their career where access to funding could help move forward their career. To be eligible for support, composers must be based in the UK and must be members of PRS for Music or in a position to join. To be eligible for support, composers must be based in the UK and must be members of PRS for Music or in a position to join. The next deadline for applications is the 28th May 2019.
Funding to support local good causes
The Morrison’s Foundation awards grants to community projects that improve people’s lives. Applicants must demonstrate how the project will deliver public benefit, who in the community will specifically benefit and how it will bring about positive change.
Grants may be applied for by any charity which is registered with the Charity Commission (England and Wales) that have financial information dating back to 2012. Applicants must also have raised some funding towards the project elsewhere.
Projects supported have ranged from support groups to children’s hospitals and homeless shelters to hospices across England, Scotland and Wales. In 2018, a total of £9,717,536 was distributed to 807 organisations which included:
- Groundwork London received a grant of £11,578 to run a series of activities for people at risk of social isolation.
- Friends of East Preston School received a grant of £5,000 to replace their old and dilapidated outdoor trim trail.
- Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice received a grant of £20,000 to buy a new minibus and run activity trips for young patients.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis can be submitted at any time and there is no specific grant amount that
Funding available to tackle problems within families
Registered charities whose activities support and encourage the family to work as a cohesive unit in tackling problems that face one or more of its members can apply for grants of between £1,000 and £5,000 (but trustees will consider requests for higher amounts) through the Kelly Family Charitable Trust.
The Trust will consider both capital and revenue grants. The Trust is happy to support requests for core funding as well as project-based grants, and actively encourages applications from relatively new organisations to help them become established.
The three areas of activity that the charity wishes to support are:
- Interventions that support families and help them in ways that prevent the fracture of the family unit, e.g. practical family support, relationship counselling, mediation.
- Families where sexual abuse, physical abuse, domestic violence, alcohol abuse and drug abuse threaten the integrity of the family unit.
- Prisoners and in particular their families, during and after the period of imprisonment.
- The trust prefers to support charities whose income is below £500,000. However, larger charities with pioneering pilot projects will be considered.
Projects supported in the past include:
- “Mosac”, a voluntary organisation that supports all non-abusing parents and carers whose children have been sexually abused.
- Westminster Befriend a Family, which recruits, trains and supports volunteers to befriend individual families under stress and visit them regularly in their homes. The charity’s volunteers can help families where a parent is disabled or has mental health problems, or a child has special needs.
The next closing date for applications is the 1st September 2019.
Field Studies Bursary Fund
The Field Studies Council (FSC) Bursary provides support to individuals who are from disadvantaged backgrounds enabling them to take part in FSC curriculum focused courses with their school class. This support, for individuals, is valuable as it can be a deciding factor on whether or not a whole class experiences fieldwork and out of classroom learning.
Bursaries can be awarded to a maximum per school of £1,500 for residential courses and £450 for day visits per academic year. Each individual student may only benefit from one bursary.
Bursaries will represent a maximum of 80% of the curriculum course fee. Applications from schools with a group size of more than 30 students of whom at least 50% are eligible for bursary support will be considered on an individual basis.
Children and young people aged 4-19 attending school or college in the state sector who live in the 10% most deprived areas of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland and who are attending a curriculum focused FSC course are eligible to apply.
Applications can be made at any time but must be made at least 4 weeks prior to the date of the FSC course.
Examples of Projects Funded include:
- Archbishop Sentamu Academy, Hull: 25 of the group who visited FSC Malham Tarn to study GCSE geography received a bursary to enable them to go.
- Corpus Christi Primary, Glasgow: This school received bursary support for 12 of their group of 45 primary students to attend a course at FSC Kindrogan.
Funding for football equipment and facilities
Grants of up to £10,000 are available to schools, grass roots football clubs, local authorities and professional and semi-professional football clubs and their associated community organisations that are looking to refurbish their existing or develop new football facilities.
The funding is available through the Football Foundation’s Premier League and the FA Facilities Fund Small Grants Scheme and can be used to buy capital items such as portable floodlights, storage containers and other equipment; or to refurbish/improve existing facilities. The aims of this scheme are to:
- Support the growth of football clubs and activity
- Prevent a decline in football participation
- Make improvements to facilities to address any health and safety issues.
The grants awarded cannot exceed 50% of the total project cost. The Football Foundation strongly recommends that applicants use the pre-application advice offered on our behalf by The FA and the network of County FAs around England. This will normally involve completing the FA’s Football Facilities Enquiry Form (FEF) first, which will help The FA to learn more about a project and determine the best way to support the applicant organisation. Applications can be submitted at any time.
One Stop ‘Carriers for Causes’
Not for profit organisations, including schools that are located within 2 miles of a One Stop shop can apply for grants of up to £1,000 for projects that benefit their local community. One Stop’s ‘Carriers for Causes’ is funded through the money raised from the 5p bag charge in One Stop stores in England, Wales and Scotland.
The grants are available for a wide range of activities and the funding will cover the direct costs needed to deliver the project. Projects eligible for funding include:
- One off community events such as community fun day expenses, summer youth camp, litter picking, sports events, expenses to pay for terminally ill cancer patients on visits to the seaside.
- Purchasing items to run a project such as specialised medical equipment, football/cricket /netball kit for local junior club, arts and craft materials for a workshop, kitchen equipment for a healthy eating project, marketing materials for an event, fishing kit for youth project.
- Improvements to community buildings such as painting, refurbishing buildings such as hospices, scout or guide huts, school building, community centres.
- Improvements to external spaces such as park clean ups, community gardens, hospital/hospice gardens, disabled access projects, food growing projects, woodland walk.
- Purchasing materials to undertake a place based improvement project such as buying paint, litter pickers, gravel, grass seed, plants, and benches.
Applications can be submitted at any time and are shortlisted on a quarterly basis for panel decision which will take place every three months. Applicants will generally know the outcome of your application within 16 weeks of applying.
The Japan Society small grants programme
Educational establishments such as schools and colleges as well as community based organisations that wish to develop projects and events that promote an understanding of Japan and Japanese culture are able to apply for funding through the Japan Society’s Small Grants programme.
The awards support projects with an education or youth focus. Most awards are of £1,000 or less and should not, in principle, cover more than 50% of the total budget. Applications may be made at any time and applicants are informed of the decision within 4 weeks of receipt of the application.
The Japan Society Small Grants give priority to projects:
- Which enhance understanding and awareness of Japan and its culture
- With an education or youth focus
- Which include an element of participation
- Which focus on the local community or take place in the regions
Previous projects supported include Witchford Village College which ran a Japan Day for year 9 students. It involved a variety of activities, such as kendo and taiko drumming performances, Japanese cookery, origami folding and haiku writing. The Japan Society small grant was given to support the workshop leader, lecturer and performer of the event.
Equipment grants for youth clubs
Variety, the Children’s Charity, has grants of £250 to £600 available to youth organisations that are affiliated to Ambition, UK Youth or the National Association of Boys and Girls Clubs. The grants can be used to buy equipment to provide challenging activities that engage young people aged 8-18 and provide them with alternatives to becoming involved in the anti-social behavior that often stems from boredom and peer pressure.
On occasion, applications for improvement of youth club premises, refurbishment of existing equipment or facilities will also be considered.
Applicants have to raise some of the funds and applications that have young people involved in the fund raising will be looked upon favorably. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Support for homeless charities and hospices
CRASH, the construction and property industries’ charity assists homelessness charities and hospices in England and Wales with their construction projects. CRASH offers help in a practical way as well as providing cash grants.
CRASH does this by supporting improvements to hospices, hostels, day centres, night shelters, training centres and move-on accommodation, for frontline homelessness agencies who work directly with homeless people.
CRASH seeks to support these organisations by:
- Providing professional expertise such as, architects, quantity surveyors, project managers and specialist engineers
- Providing cash grants
- And /or providing free building materials free of charge from supporting suppliers.
To be eligible for support organisations must be registered charities, have legal hold on the building in question, either freehold or lease for at least 10 years, and the building is currently delivering, or will be used to deliver services to single homeless men and women over the age of 18; or used to deliver in-patient and or day services to people in need of end of life care.
Please contact CRASH in advance of making your application to discuss your project to discuss the ways in which
This document is produced by Corporate Policy, Research and Partnerships, Blackburn with Darwen Council.
Tel: 01254 585825