Lloyds Bank Foundation offers £5.5mn to small charities, & other funding opportunities
Melanie May | 1 December 2022 | News
Here’s a bumper round up of funding news and opportunities, from Lloyds Bank Foundation’s new offer of unrestricted grants, to Co-op Foundation’s funding to help young people become leaders & activists.
Lloyds Bank Foundation to give £5.5mn to small specialist charities
Small and local charities can now apply for unrestricted grants of up to £75,000, spread over three years, from Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales. It is the first funding opportunity from the Foundation since it launched its ‘Building a Better Future’ strategy earlier this year.
Specialist charities tackling complex issues with an annual income between £25,000 and £500,000 can apply. The unrestricted grants will allow charities complete flexibility to use the funding however they see fit, including to cover salaries, rent and utilities.
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The funding programme is open from 29 November until 3 March 2023. The Foundation will also open two additional funding programmes in 2023 for small charities led by and for Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, and D/deaf and disabled people. Altogether these three programmes total £11mn – part of the Foundation’s 2023 investment into small and local charities.
Applications open for walking, wheeling and cycling project funding
Scottish walking charity, Paths for All has increased the maximum amount of its active travel Open Fund available to public, community and third-sector organisation, with grants up to £100,000 now available.
Supported by Transport Scotland, the Smarter Choices, Smarter Places (SCSP) Open Fund doubled from £2.5 million to £5 million earlier this year as it aims to help cut Scotland’s carbon emissions and improve air quality by supporting people across Scotland to travel in more active and sustainable ways.
Projects can apply for between £5,000 and now up to £100,000 – which is a 50% increase from previous years.
The extension aims to create new opportunities for organisations and projects to extend their ambition to adopt active and sustainable travel in order to reduce the reliance on cars.
Initiatives will be focused on encouraging more people to change their everyday travel behaviours and help provide opportunities to drive less and to walk or cycle as part of their everyday short journeys or to use public transport for longer journeys.
A total of £13.5 million has been awarded to 542 projects across Scotland after the Open Fund was first launched in 2017.
Gatwick Foundation Fund relaunching with grants of up to £10,000 for local organisations
After being suspended during the pandemic, The Gatwick Foundation Fund is relaunching with grants of up to £10,000 for local organisations in Kent, Surrey and Sussex that support young people, improve health and wellbeing, tackle social isolation and disadvantage or raise aspirations.
Originally launched in late 2016, Gatwick’s Foundation Fund has to date distributed £1.2 million in 236 grants, benefiting over 100,000 people across Sussex, Surrey and Kent.
Kent Community Foundation will administer the Gatwick Airport Foundation Fund for community projects in Kent and the funding for Surrey and Sussex organisations will be administered by their respective Community Foundations. The Fund will make £300,000 available each year split evenly between the three counties.
New funding to help diverse young people become leaders & activists
Voluntary organisations that help diverse young people become leaders and activists can now apply for unrestricted grants from a new flexible fund created by Co-op’s charity, the Co-op Foundation.
Funding of up to £30,000 per year for five years is available now from the first round of the ‘Future Communities Fund’. The fund encourages organisations to share power with young people to create more inclusive, diverse and equitable communities.
Eligible organisations must:
- Have an annual turnover of £250k or less
- Have young people’s voices from all backgrounds and abilities at the core of their delivery
- Advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in all areas of society
- Actively engage with young people from diverse communities in a meaningful and inclusive way
- Have experience of removing barriers and providing opportunities for young people
- Have experience of delivering meaningful youth social action which supports young people into leadership roles
- Be able to demonstrate they have experience of co-operation/collaboration.
Those interested can find out more and get involved by completing the Foundation’s first stage application. Applications will close at midday on Friday 23 December.
The Future Communities Fund is the first fund launched by the Co-op Foundation as part of its new ‘Building communities of the future together’ strategy.
Nisa MADL’s Heart of the Community Awards provided good causes with £150,000 in October
Nisa’s Making a Difference Locally charity has helped retailers to support local projects and good causes with £150,000 in donations in October with its latest round of Heart of the Community Awards.
The initiative enabled Nisa retailers to nominate a local community group to receive up to £3,000 of funding from Making a Difference Locally, with an emphasis on small charities and community groups supporting people living in crisis and helping them become more self-sufficient.
The Heart of the Community Awards saw 69 charities and good causes nationwide benefit from donations ranging between £1,000 and £3,000. Examples of the winning causes include foodbanks gifting slow cookers to their service users, SIM cards for Ukrainian refugees arriving in the UK, and projects providing cookery lessons to low-income families.
In September, Making a Difference Locally announced they had raised £15 million for good causes since the charity’s formation in 2008 and launched their fourth round of Heart of the Community Awards to celebrate the milestone achievement.
Nisa will be running another two rounds next year. The first will launch on 1February when it runs a ‘Love Your Charity’ campaign for small charities to apply for up to £1,000 to upskill someone in their charity. It could be a cook for a foodbank, a woodworker for a Men in Sheds, or a fundraiser, for example with the focus on small charities and helping them make their money go further. £28,000 will be available in total.
The next round after that will be for community celebrations for the Coronation (the date is still tbc), with a budget of £50,000.
Amazon & the Learning Foundation launch scheme to provide disadvantaged schools with devices & digital support
Amazon and digital education charity, the Learning Foundation have launched Tech4Schools, a new scheme that provides low-income schools serving disadvantaged communities with new devices, digital skills training and tech support. The scheme is funded by Amazon, and will be rolled out in collaboration with charity In Kind Direct, who will connect schools with their devices, and education charity Teach First, who will identify schools to participate in the scheme, all of whom will be part of Teach First programmes.
Tech4Schools is an initiative designed to tackle the issue of digital poverty and digital access. Following £360,000 funding from Amazon, Teach First will select schools in need from disadvantaged communities across the UK to receive support. Each school will receive a donation of £18,000 to fund devices to use at home and in-class, as well as other tech peripherals they may need, such as keyboards and headphones. Participating schools will also receive bespoke support from the Learning Foundation on how to embed a digital culture within the school, how to engage with parents, and how teachers can best use devices to enhance learning opportunities for young people of all ages.
In addition, the Learning Foundation’s online Community Hub will run a dedicated space for school staff participating in this scheme, to share best practice and learning, together with masterclasses and short “how to” sessions, with Q&As for participants. Schools will also gain support from experts within their Teach First community, and receive ongoing access to products and savings with In Kind Direct.
Tech4Schools is only open to schools with a Teach First relationship. Only schools contacted by Teach First are able to join the scheme, it is not open for applications at this time.
Amazon Literary Partnership opens for 2023 grant applications
Amazon Literary Partnership back in the UK for a fourth year with 2023 grant applications now being accepted from UK-based nonprofit literary organisations that develop emerging writers, support diversity and celebrate storytelling.
In 2022, the Amazon Literary Partnership supported 28 literary groups across the UK. From organisations dedicated to helping children and young adults develop their writing skills to those championing the next generation of playwrights who might otherwise lack pathways into theatre.
Amazon Literary Partnership provides grants to nonprofit literary organisations on an annual basis. Applications for 2023 grants are being accepted now until 31 January 2023. Grant recipients will be notified by 16 May 2023.
Applicants must be a registered nonprofit organisation in the UK, whose core mission is to develop emerging writers, support diversity, celebrate storytelling, and/or build authors’ careers.
Virgin Money Community Anchor funding reaches £10mn with latest grants round announced
Community groups across the North East of England will share grants totalling over £343,000 as part of the latest Community Anchor funding programme from Virgin Money Foundation, taking the total donated in the region to over £10million.
The latest round of grants will support 10 community groups, from Newcastle to Redcar who all play a role in supporting people impacted by the rising cost of living through a range of activities. This includes providing crisis support, working with homeless young people, supporting community enterprises and providing access to low-cost or free food.
The groups to benefit include Footprints in the Community in Redcar and Back on the Map in Sunderland. Footprints in the Community aim to address isolation and poverty in and around Redcar providing a network of support to local people and organisations. They have been awarded £25,678.
There is no deadline for this fund, but once the money is allocated it will close for the rest of the year. The next Awards will be agreed in December.
Movement for Good Awards award funding to environment & climate charities
Five environment and climate charities have each been awarded £5,000 as part of the Benefact Group’s Movement for Good Awards.
In recognition of the COP27 conference, members of the public were invited to nominate environmental and climate causes close to their hearts, with five awards of £5,000 available.
Greener and Cleaner in Bromley is one of five charities set to benefit from the money. The charity helps people work towards creating a greener and more sustainable local community. The group of volunteers share information and resources to reduce people’s environmental impact at home, at work and in the wider community.
In total, more than 14,000 people nominated over 1,000 environmental and climate causes up and down the country. The five winning charities were picked at random from those nominated.
Benefact Group’s Movement for Good Awards gives over £1million to charities each year. It is currently running 12 Days of Giving – the last phase of its Movement for Good programme for 2022. For 12 days in December, it will be drawing 10 charities per working day to receive £1,000. The first draw takes place on 1 December and the last on the 16th and charities can be nominated now.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.