Funding Friday
Awards for All, Reaching Communities and Partnerships – The National Lottery Community Fund
The National Lottery Community Fund is open to all applications that meet their criteria, including support during COVID-19. With the COVID-19 pandemic still with us, they’ll continue to support people and communities most adversely impacted by COVID-19. They can support you to:
- continue to deliver activity, whether you’re supporting your existing users, responding to the immediate crisis or undertaking recovery activity
- change and adapt, becoming more resilient in order to respond to new and future challenges.
In order to support communities to thrive, they aim to:
- build strong relationships in and across communities
- improve the places and spaces that matter to communities
- help more people to reach their potential, by supporting them at the earliest possible stage.
The Awards for All programme can provide between £300 and £10,000 for up to one year. The Reaching Communities programme offers larger amounts of funding (over £10,000) for up to 5 years. The Partnerships programme also offers a larger amount of funding (over £10,000) for organisations that work together with a shared set of goals to help their community thrive – whether that’s a community living in the same area, or people with similar interests or life experiences.
Apply via The National Lottery Community Fund website.
Return to Play Fund – Sport England
There are three parts to this new fund. Two have been adapted from pre-coronavirus funds, with one extended, and all three will now focus on supporting a safe return to play.
- Return to Play: Small Grants – makes awards of between £300 and £10,000, from a total pot of £10m, to help sport and activity groups, clubs and organisations respond to the immediate challenges of returning to play in a coronavirus-safe way. Following national restrictions in November, it also offers up to £2,000 awards towards the running costs of organisations supporting the most deprived communities.
- Return to Play: Community Asset Fund – makes awards of between £10,001 to £50,000, from a pot of £5m, to help local sports clubs and organisations adapt and open important places and spaces to help their local community return to play safely.
- Return to Play: Active Together – is a crowdfunding initiative that can match fund, up to £10,000, successful Crowdfunder campaigns from a pot of £1.5m. The partnership with Crowdfunder also includes advice, guidance and training to help create a successful campaign.
Apply via the Sport England website.
Comic Relief Community Fund (England) – Groundwork UK
The Comic Relief Community Fund (England) is offering grants to grassroots community organisations with an income of less than £250,000.
There are two types of grants available to organisations whose work delivers on one of Comic Relief’s four strategic themes:
- Children Survive & Thrive: projects that support children under the age of 11 to reach their potential and have the best start in life.
- Fighting for Gender Justice: projects that improve equality for women, girls and the LBTQI+ community and initiatives that help people affected by domestic violence, abuse or exploitation due to their gender.
- A Safe Place to Be: projects that support people who are rebuilding their lives because of homelessness or forced migration.
- Mental Health Matters: projects that support good mental health in communities, improve access to support and tackle stigma and discrimination.
Funding is available to help you develop your organisation through a Capacity Building Grant (up to £1000).
Administration of the local funding is being managed by community charity, Groundwork, which specialises in transforming communities and the local environment for the better.