| This ebulletin contains funding information for Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations across the North East of England. FINE is a project of VONNE, the regional support body for the North East VCSE sector. |
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Opportunities
BBC Children in Need Main Grants (UK)
£10,000+. Registered charities. Deadline 13th September 2018.
BBC Children in Need give grants to projects that involve children and young people of 18 years and under experiencing disadvantage through:
- illness, distress, abuse or neglect.
- any kind of disability.
- behavioural or psychological difficulties.
- living in poverty or situations of deprivation.
The Main Grants Programme is for grants over £10,000 per year to support projects for up to three years.
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Building Connections Fund (Grant - UK)
Opens July 2018.
This £11m fund will open in July 2018 and run until the end of December 2020. Funds will be distributed to charities and community groups that can help bring communities together. This will help make the most of local spaces, opening them up for community use, as well as help businesses and local services combat isolation. It will also fund projects that use technology to link those in remote areas and help improve transport connections to make face-to-face contact easier.
It will support groups to understand the impact of their work and share best practice about how to prevent loneliness. The fund has been created as a partnership between the Big Lottery Fund and the Government - who have equally pledged £5 million - and the Co-op Foundation, who has allocated £1 million to tackle loneliness among young people
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Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust (Grant – North East)
£250 - £100,000. Registered charities. No deadline.
The Catherine Cookson Trust supports a wide range of activities including education and training, environment and conservation, arts and culture as well as general charitable purposes. The Trust’s principal aim is to identify and meet the local needs of the area in which Dame Catherine was brought up and resided. In particular the Trust supports work with young or disadvantaged people.
The Trustees prefer projects/schemes which involve or are directed towards capital expenditure.
They do not generally consider applications for core funding or on-going financing, applications with a foreign element, individuals or applications for Sports Clubs/Associations.
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Co-op Foundation (Loans / Grant – UK)
The Co-op Foundation is offering interest free loans for enterprising ideas to improve community spaces. Venues such as parks and community centres need regular income so they can continue to meet the needs of people who use them. Community organisations who are thinking about growing their trading activities to generate more sustainable income may be able to access a loan to help.
Interest-free loans of up to £50,000 (no repayments in the first year) are available to put towards viable business ideas that will benefit the whole community – particularly those facing greater challenges.
Those based in a more deprived area, or whose work mainly benefits more disadvantaged members of the community, may also be able to access some grant funding alongside a loan.
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E C Graham Belford Charitable Settlement (Grant – Northumberland)
Up to £10,000. Registered charities. No deadline specified.
The E C Graham Belford Charitable Settlement makes grants to smaller charities throughout Northumberland. The charity awards around £100,000 per year. Application is by letter. The smallest grant in 2016/2017 was £2,000. Most were for £5,000 or £10,000.
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Government Funding for Small Business Growth (England)
Up to £400,000. Small-medium businesses (including VCSE sector). Deadline 4th September 2018
The Government has launched a new £2 million fund for proof of concept projects aimed at encouraging SMEs to adopt productivity-boosting technology or business practices. The funding will be used to develop and trial ideas. It will also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of these ideas in the short, medium and long term.
The Proof of Concept strand provides grants of up to £60,000 for feasibility projects. The Full-Scale Trial Strand provides grants of up to £400,000 to undertake full scale trials.
To be eligible for funding the applicant must be one of the following:
- England based public sector organisation
- University or research and technology organisation
- Charity, representative body or trade association
- England based business of any size working in collaboration with the above
Proposals should relate to the actions SMEs can take to become more productive:
- Adopting existing technology (such as accountancy, CRM or HR software, cloud computing or payment systems)
- Adopting modern business practices (such as leadership and management capabilities or developing an innovation culture)
- A combination of the two
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Great British High Street Awards 2018 (UK)
Deadline 22nd August 2018
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government has launched the 2018 Great British High Street Awards. The Awards recognise and celebrate local achievements on Britain’s high streets and support the communities in which they live and work.
High streets are eligible to win up to £10,000 for their local community, plus the opportunity for their local businesses and consumers to participate in a Visa GBHS Spend & Win Competition.
Winners will be named in each of the four UK nations across two categories:
- The Champion High Street category will recognise the nation’s best high streets.
- The Rising Star High Street category will recognise the nation’s most ambitious high streets, which are taking the lead and working together to revive, adapt and diversify.
An overall High Street of the Year in Great Britain and Northern Ireland will also be named.
The awards are open to:
- Business Improvement Districts
- Local Authorities
- Parish Councils
- Town Teams
- Coastal Community Teams
- Town Centre Partnerships
- Community Interest Companies
- Chambers of Commerce
- Trading Associations
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Greggs Foundation - Environmental Grants (UK)
Up to £2,000. Not for profit / schools. Deadline 22nd July 2018.
The Environmental Grant fund is dedicated to improving the local environment; the Foundation looks to fund projects that improve the physical environment in a way that also benefits the wider community.
They focus on helping existing not for profit organisations to deliver new projects. Any not for profit organisation can apply; preference will be given to small, locally based and community led organisations with a turnover not in excess of £300,000 per annum. Schools are also encouraged to apply providing the project is accessible to the community outside of school hours.
The Foundation is interested in projects that improve the physical environment in a way that will improve people's lives. This can include purchase of equipment, sessional salary costs, purchase of trees/plants, small capital projects and learning activities. They are also interested in new approaches and innovative ideas as well as sustainable approaches to supporting the local environment.
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Heritage Lottery Fund - Heritage Enterprise (Grant - UK)
The programme provides grants to support not-for-profit organisations in partnership with the private sector for the restoration of unused historic building and sites. The programme provides grants where historic buildings have failed to attract enough investment because the cost of their repair has not been commercially viable for private developers. Through the programme, two levels of grants are available:
- Grants of between £100,000 and under £2 million (decisions made every 3 months).
- Grants of between £2 million and £5 million (next deadline 16th August 2018).
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Local Environmental Action Fund (LEAF) (Grant – Tyne & Wear and Northumberland)
£2,000 - £20,000. VCSE (smaller organisations preferred). Deadline 1st August 2018
The Local Environmental Action Fund (LEAF) exists to help people to deliver projects that tackle environmental issues in their local area. The fund provides an opportunity for the partners involved to work together to support environmental projects and share learning with grant makers and voluntary and community groups.
Projects should have very clear environmental focus but should also show how they have a positive impact on the quality of life of communities, particularly in areas of severe environmental and economic hardship. Applications should demonstrate one of more of the following outcomes:
- Encouraging communities to get involved in environmental activities.
- Changing behaviours leading to more local environmental action.
- Having a positive impact on the environment.
- Sharing learning about the environment with others.
While LEAF will consider applications for projects focused on most environmental themes, priority in 2017/18 will be given to applications covering one or more of the following specific themes:
- Pollution and litter
- Woodlands and trees
- Sustainable transport (e.g. walking and cycling schemes)
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Funders Spotlight – Virgin Money Foundation North East Fund
Remember the Virgin Money Foundation’s North East Fund is open and looking for applications.
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We were funded!
Each issue we'll be featuring a funding success story from a local VCO sharing what worked for them. If you'd like to share your funding story email jen.thompson@vonne.org.uk
Project: Sticking Together
Grantee: Durham Stickmakers
Funder: Enriching Later Life programme (managed by County Durham Community Foundation)
Amount: £5,000
A group of handy Stickmakers have carved out a bright future through a £5,000 community grant.
Durham Stickmakers have been meeting for 20 years and gather twice a week to learn the traditional craft of making walking sticks, canes, staffs and shepherds’ crooks. Durham Stickmakers applied to the Enriching Later Life programme, managed by County Durham Community Foundation, for help towards running costs. They were awarded a grant of £5,000 which will be used to help pay increasing rent, without having to pass on the cost to members in subscriptions.
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Information and Resources
Charity mergers – national vs. local
The public debate about charity mergers is being “skewed” and should be focused on national organisations, according to Lloyds Bank Foundation Chief Executive Paul Streets. Streets has criticised broad calls for more charities to merge, saying smaller regional organisations were often best placed to deliver public services.
He also said the argument that mergers can help charities achieve greater economies of scale does not apply to local organisations and that merging can actually be a disadvantage in this regard. Streets also said that local charities were “very difficult to merge” because they are “very personality-driven” and that often they do not want to grow
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Short guide for non-techies running digital projects in charities
You don’t need to be a technical expert to ensure your charity digital project is a success. What you do need to be able to do is translate your normal planning processes – what you would do for any other project – into the digital realm. Award winning fundraiser John Dunford outlines the questions you need to ask if you are to meet your goals.
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Social Value Act reform
The Government has committed to strengthening the Social Value Act and to use more voluntary sector organisations to deliver public services.
David Lidington, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has confirmed plans to amend the Social Value Act so that all major procurements will have to “explicitly evaluate” the wider value added to society by bidders.
The move is an attempt to rebuild trust following the collapse of Carillion, the construction giant which was a major supplier of services to the Government. Many charity bidders will remain unaffected however, because they are likely to be bidding for contracts far smaller than the "major procurements" that the changes will apply to.
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The Banks Group 2017 Corporate Responsibility (CR) Report: Sustainability Through Business Diversity
The report sets out some of the highlights of the Group’s CR work in 2017. It is divided into four main sections, covering each of the strands of work that the CR Group focuses on, namely:
- Community
- Environment
- Business Partners
- Workplace
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The Value of Small
Lloyds Bank Foundation for England & Wales recently launched the findings of major national research commissioned on the impact of small, local level charities and the challenges to survival that they face.
The Value of Small focuses on Small and Medium Charities (referred to throughout the report as SMCs, and defined as voluntary, community, social enterprise and civil society organisations that operate at local level with an income of between £10,000 and £1 million). The study highlights distinctive value that SMCs provide by playing a stabilising role between services and communities and by providing tailored, diverse and responsive local support services that plug gaps in local public service provision.
The findings support the longstanding NAVCA and Local Infrastructure position on the urgent need to address gaps in funding, and also makes reference to the crucial role that local infrastructure organisations continue to play in supporting SMCs.
The report makes strategic recommendations around the reform of funding, reframing the role of social value and sustaining relationships between SMCs, wider voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, and public sector bodies.
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