Your Wirral, a fund jointly administered by Wirral Council and not-for-profit housing provider Magenta Living, has made available £250,000 to support local groups. If you are a voluntary or community organisation working in Wirral, you may be eligible for a grant of up to £2,500 to support any activities that address one or more of the following themes:
- Creating an attractive and safe environment;
- Contributing to community economic regeneration;
- Preventing crime or reducing the fear of crime;
- Providing employment and training for local people;
- Benefiting local people who face discrimination;
- Improving community facilities;
- Engaging communities to improve quality of life
Funds are available for each of the four constituency areas in Wirral (Birkenhead, Wallasey, Wirral South and Wirral West), and for Wirral-wide projects.
The deadline for applications is noon on 14th September 2015.
Applications can be made online at www.wirral.gov.uk/yourwirral. If you have any difficulties completing the online form, please contact the engagement officer for your constituency. Their contact details can be found on Wirral Council’s website – http://www.wirral.gov.uk/my-services/council-and-democracy/neighbourhoods
The GSK IMPACT Awards have been running since 1997 and are designed to recognise and reward charities that are doing excellent work to improve people’s health. They are funded by GlaxoSmithKline and managed in partnership with The King’s Fund. The awards are open to registered charities that are at least three years old, working in a health-related field in the UK, with a total annual income between £25,000 and £2 million. The 2016 GSK IMPACT Awards are now open for applications – view the guidelines and access the application form
Paul Hamlyn – Ideas and Pioneers Fund supports people who have an idea with unusual promise to improve the life chances and opportunities of individuals and communities in the UK. We are looking for ideas which relate closely to our own charitable mission – we aim to help people overcome disadvantage and lack of opportunity, so that they can realise their potential and enjoy fulfilling and creative lives. We want to work with people whose ideas are in the early stages of development. You will be committed to making your idea happen, and will have done some initial work to develop it, but it will still be at an early stage. We are ready to be the first funder to support an idea, and welcome applications from people who have not received grant funding before. We can provide funding totalling up to £30,000 over up to 18 months to help you get started, and introduce you to a group of peers for mutual support. We will consider funding work to enable you to develop the idea from concept to set-up, including problem definition and analysis, scoping, exploratory work, and prototyping. We understand that ideas are driven by the passion of the people who hold them, so this fund is open to individuals, teams working independently and small organisations. We are particularly interested in receiving applications from people who haven’t applied to PHF before. See the website for more information.
The Edge Fund support work run by and for communities facing discrimination and injustice. We fund work carried out by individuals and grassroots groups in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England that find it difficult to get funding elsewhere. Specifically, we fund work that challenges abuses of power and aims to change society by bringing an end to the systems that cause injustice. While applicants may be working on short term reforms, we are looking for applicants that ultimately aim to end or replace these systems with a just alternative, rather than trying to improve or reform them. To apply for a grant of up to £3,000 you need to answer 5 questions in no more than 2 pages. The deadline for applications is 5pm Sunday 25 October. See the website for more information.
The Police Commissioner for Merseyside is able to award charitable grants to organisations that deliver community projects that reduce crime, improve public safety or support victims. This funding under the Police Property Act is from the sale of property which has come into the police’s possession where the owner of the property cannot be identified and where a court order has been made. Grants of up to £5,000 are available to support projects that are targeted towards at least of one of the following priorities: Reducing anti social behaviour, Tackling serious and organised crime, Maintaining public safety, Tackling hate crime, Improving victim services, Supporting neighbourhood policing. For this round the Police and Crime Commissioner is looking to support diversionary projects for children and young people taking place around the Halloween and Bonfire Night period. Closing date for applications: 14th September 2015 5pm. Panel date: Early October 2015. Core salaries cannot be considered. An online application must be submitted via the Community Foundation for Merseyside. Please visit the ‘Apply’ section on our website and complete the specific Police Property Act fund online application.
NHS England is launching a new community grant opportunity. NHS England is seeking to make grant awards to showcase good practice around patient and citizen participation in healthcare. We know that there is really excellent patient and public involvement work happening all around the country and we want to do more to share and learn from what is happening locally. NHS England will be awarding a number of small community grants to not for profit organisations who can tell the story of their patient and citizen engagement work in a creative and interesting way. This can be in a wide variety of ways; videos, photo or audio books, leaflets and posters, graphics or other formats. Grants are available of up to £1,000 each, the total funds available are £10,000. For more information go to the website.
Merseyside Funding Information Portal
An online resource that will give you all you need to know about funding your charitable or community work, whether you are an individual, community group, voluntary organisation, registered charity or social enterprise. In addition, information and support in tendering and procurement related opportunities for voluntary bodies are now offered through this portal.
www.mfip.org.uk/
Funding alerts from Funding Central
Are you getting the most out of your weekly funding alerts? Check your profile and see if there’s any information you might be missing out on. Your weekly email can contain new and updated funding alerts of regional, national and European opportunities as well as reminders of approaching deadlines, notifications about potential partners, news and events. Can’t wait for the weekly newsletter? Don’t forget you can run a search on the website at any time and adjust and save your settings for next time.
www.fundingcentral.org.uk
Other items of Interest …
‘Small Fundraisers’ was set up by fundraisers on Wirral to create a peer network, where they could access support, advice and good ideas to improve their fundraising practise from each other. Our next meeting will be held on the 10th September 2015 at the Barnstondale Centre and we have invited Jane Harris – Administrator from the Morgan Foundation to share her thoughts on which projects they are looking for and top tips on how to approach this fund.
Don’t forget our ProHelp Wirral project. Do you need some legal, building, accounts expertise? Perhaps we can help with a little probono support. For more information email [email protected]
The Charity Commission has amended its guidance on telephone fundraising to make it clear that all charities who use the practice must comply with data protection legislation. In a statement, the Commission confirmed that it updated section 5.4 of its Charities and Fundraising (CC20) to reflect similar changes made to the IoF’s Codes of Fundraising Practice last week.
SEN’s Powerful Together Awards 2015 – Nominations now open!
It’s that time of year again. SEN’s annual Powerful Together awards are to be held in Liverpool Town Hall on 30th October 2015. This year, we have 14 awards categories up for grabs. These range from Green Social Enterprise Champion for environmental-minded organisations to the Pay It Forward Award for the social enterprise who is most philanthropic in their approach. Check out our guidance notes and the nomination form on the website, and make sure you get your own nominations in before the 31st August deadline.
The Regional Funders Forum North West Update: June 2015
Key Fund (CD)
They will be shortly publishing their Social Impact Report 2014/15. All new clients are being given “Key Fit” a social impact measurement tool, which is free and optional for the groups to use.
There is also a new grants programme in place being run in conjunction with Power To Change (total available initially £1m) which is being at present piloted in Yorkshire & Humberside only, if the pilot is successful Key Fund hope this will be rolled out across their whole geographical coverage including the North West.
From 1st June only on-line applications can be accepted via their new website process.
Arts Council
They have published their new portfolio of regularly funded organisations, consisting of 666 organisations, which get around 85% of the total Arts Council grants. The grants are made up of Lottery funding and Treasury funds (the latter declining year on year. The Capital projects grant may shrink significantly after the next 12 months. There is a particular focus on investments around resilience both saving money and reducing environmental impact– such as upgrade in equipment e.g. energy saving lighting and environmental projects.
Lloyds Bank Foundation (ML)
They are 1 year into the new strategy, which aims to support those who are experiencing multiple disadvantage at one of a range of critical points (transition points) in their lives. There is a clear focus on quality and fit with the Programme Aim, rather than a geographical focus. A full list of the transition points can be found on the Foundation website. Funding for the Invest programme is very competitive, particularly the transition point around unemployment, which is aimed at supporting in-depth targeted support to those who are furthest away from the labour market, and not at generic employability programmes.
The Foundation is keen to encourage more applications to its Enable Programme, which is not a small grants programme, but provides a great opportunity to strengthen the capacity of a charity so that it can deliver its services more effectively. The programme can fund organisational improvements such as leadership and governance, improve systems, demonstrating outcomes etc. Grants of upto £15k over 2 years are available.
Organisation who have been successful with either an Invest or an Enable grant are also offered a package of support under the Enhance Programme which provides access to a wide range of non-financial support.
To celebrate its 30th Anniversary the Foundation has also delivered an Awards Programme, with approx. 777 entries, with a good spread across the Regions, the NW receiving the highest number of applications outside of London. An Awards Celebration will take place in London on 8th October 2015.
The Foundation will operate a grant round approach from 2016. If you require a funding decision before March 2016 you will need to have submitted an Expression of Interest Form via our website by midnight on Friday August 28th. The Foundation will ensure all enquiries received before this date will receive a decision by the end of the year.
The Foundation will be closed to new funding requests during September 2015 and we will re-open on Monday 5th October. Three grant rounds will operate in 2016 with decisions at the end of March, July and November. Detailed timetables will be published on the website to provide clear guidance on the deadlines for each round.
Community Foundation Lancashire and Merseyside
The Vital Signs project is continuing into its second year with the focus on Children and Young People, and a report due on 6th October 2015.Round of funding with Santander for social enterprises has just been completed. 75-80% of the CFLM funding is from private money, and there has been a noticeable growth around targeting entrepreneur activity.
CFLM are currently doing some work around Impact Measurement – the focus is on what are they measuring; what do they need to measure; how are they doing it and how are they presenting it.They currently have 50 funders and work across 12 social themes – and have to report across funders, social themes and geographically.
Big Lottery Fund
Building Capabilities : (SC)This is launching at the end of June and is a national pilot, with Blackpool being one of the pilot areas. It is being delivered by the Young Foundation, supported by the local CVS. The programme is targeting groups with an income of less than £2k, who can apply for vouchers to receive support, following an initial assessment to determine the support needed.
In Wigan BLF are in the process of distributing LA community funds linking in with BLF Grants.
Natalie Brandon has been recruited as a funding adviser to cover the Merseyside area. Tessa is currently on secondment as Head of Learning and Policy, so they will be recruiting someone to cover her post upto March 2016.
(LM)The Strategic Framework giving an overview of the BLF funding priorities will be launched over the next couple of weeks. It is expected that Women and girls projects and advice, advocacy and hardship will be key priorities. *Has been launched since the meeting see link: – https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/about-big/strategic-framework
Portfolio for future years – it is anticipated it will be about key social policy areas – locally focused and about funding the best projects – not necessarily the best applications, and piloting and testing approaches. Most of this will be front facing.
European programme – Building Better Opportunities potentially launched this coming Friday. Match funded programme with BLF inputting £260M, with the priorities linked to LEP areas.) *Has been launched since the meeting see link: https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/global-content/programmes/england/building-better-opportunities
Devolution Agenda – The BLF Chief Exec is meeting CEO’s of LA’s to gather strategic information re: gaps in provision as well as priorities and focus, as well as exploring potential for collaborative ways of working with funders.
Neighbourhood Advocacy Fund – pilot with Comic Relief and Esmee Fairburn (no pilot area in the NW)
Local Sustainability Fund: It is expected to go ahead but no details have emerged post the election.
Sported Foundation
Following a review of their grants programme, the focus currently is to build strategic partnerships and collaborate to offer bespoke grants linked to capacity building support to targeted groups. As such we are in a transitional period as we develop this approach. An example of a project already developed using this approach includes the Box-On Pilot a partnership with Sport England and England Boxing. Selected clubs are provided with mentor support to work on developing a business plan along with having to attend a 2 day workshop on key areas to ensure sustainability e.g. governance, leases, finance, fundraising etc. The Clubs will then be able to access a £7,500 grant aligned to the completed business plan.
Children in Need
Central functions move from London to Manchester is now happening, resulting in internal change and new vacancies. The North budget for grants is £11m which is similar to last year and around 50% of this goes into NW projects.
They are currently piloting the continuation of Small grants into continuation funding for the following year. Groups are approached to put in for continuation funding, with a reduced assessment process. A new outcomes framework is also being piloted at the moment – it is currently for internal use only at the moment. There is also a review of their software and grant system.
WREN
WREN have rebranded all funding programmes as follows:
• FCC Community Action Fund replaces the community fund – Grants between £2,000 and £50,000 for capital improvement projects at public amenities
• FCC Heritage Action Fund replaces the Heritage Fund – Grants between £2,000 and £50,000 for restoration or repair of grade 1 and 2* listed buildings with public access
• FCC Biodiversity Action Fund replaces the Biodiversity Action Fund – Grants between £75,000 and £250,000 for nationally significant works to protect habitats or species
For the FCC Community Action Fund we will also be moving from three decision making meeting per year to four meetings per year from 2016 and will expect all projects to be completed within 12 months of funding being awarded.
Finally, we are looking to launch an online application process later this summer with online applications being accepted for the FCC Community Action Funding from the 8th November deadline.
Big Issue Invest
In the past three months three regional investments have been made in Housing, Education and Health, across the North West. Two of the investments were in partnership with Charity Bank and UnLtd. Over the summer months investment session are being held in Manchester and Lancashire. For more information on our recent deals, up-coming workshop or our financing in general, please contact Kevin Lloyd –Evans – Email: [email protected]
, Tel: 07506336535.
For more information on funding or to be added to the circulation list please contact Zel Rodgers – Funding Development Officer. Email [email protected] or call 0151 353 9700 ext 205
