City Bridge Foundation reopens small grants programme – & more funding news
Melanie May | 3 October 2023 | News
Grant and funding news round up, including City Bridge Foundation’s small grants programme, a Cost of Living Resilience Fund from Crowdfunder and Access – the Foundation for Social Investment, a programme for social enterprises in London, and more.
City Bridge Foundation reopens small grants programme
City Bridge Foundation has reopened its small grants programme after a five-month break and a review, and is now taking applications from constituted voluntary organisations as well as registered charities.
Grants are on offer not just for environmental projects and those benefitting older people and disabled people, but also for projects aimed at LGBTQIA+ communities and refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.
Advertisement
In addition, the foundation has raised the bar for small organisations to those with an income of up to £200,000 a year, rather than £100,000, while the maximum grant limit has doubled to £20,000, or up to 50% of an organisation’s income.
Small charities invited to apply for share of £90K from CharityJob
As part of its annual giving, CharityJob is offering charities with 50 or less employees the opportunity to receive a share of a £90,000 donation.
The closing date for entering is 13 October. Applications will then be reviewed and successful charities notified by the week ending 10 November.
Previous winners have included 21&Co and Action on Postpartum Psychosis, both of which received a £22K donation in 2022.
Entry is via this form.
Crowdfunder launches new £500,000 Cost of Living Resilience Fund
The fund will support projects that help individuals and communities navigate and overcome the challenges posed by the cost of living crisis.
Funded by Access – The Foundation for Social Investment, it provides match funding for social sector organisations running services to help people struggling with the rising cost of living. The fund will enable projects to raise increased amounts for their campaigns with projects able to apply for up to £50,000.
Eligible causes for the Cost of Living Resilience Fund could include, but are not limited to, organisations focused on affordable housing, food security, sustainable transportation, debt advice, and reducing household expenses.
Applications open for investment programme for new & early stage social enterprises in London
Big Issue Invest (BII), the investment arm of the Big Issue Group (BIG), has opened up applications for a new investment programme, aimed at new and early-stage social enterprises in London.
Power Up Londonis an accelerator programme for London-based, diverse-led, early-stage socially impactful organisations addressing social and/or environmental issues and providing services to underrepresented communities.
The programme is delivered by BII with funding by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).
Successful applicants will receive a fully-funded package of non-financial support valued at £10,000 that includes a mix of mentoring, business support, training workshops and networking opportunities delivered weekly over four months.
Participants will also benefit from introductions to other founders in the cohort, mentors, and investors.
On successful completion of the programme, participants will have the opportunity to access a grant of up to £22,000 for their social enterprise, to be used for launching new products or services, expanding to new markets, or creating new jobs in their local communities.
The year- long programme will be delivered in two cohorts, with up to 20 organisations per cohort:
- Cohort 1 will run from 13 November 2023 to 1 March 2024.
- Cohort 2 will run from 15 April 2024 to 22 July 2024.
BII is currently calling for applications from eligible organisations for cohort 1 before the closing date of Monday 23 October.
Applicants should be based in Greater London, from initiatives, charities and social enterprises in the early stages of development (annual income must be below £500,000, registered within the last 3 years), led by or working with people from marginalised communities and aiming to grow their impact and business by creating new jobs, expanding to new markets, or developing new products or services.
Next phase of funding for National Youth Guarantee via Million Hours Fund and Adventures Away From Home Fund announced
The Government has announced that the next phase of the Million Hours Fund is open for applications, in partnership with The National Lottery Community Fund.
Designed to create more than one million additional hours of youth centre provision in areas with high numbers of antisocial behaviour incidents, the £19 million fund will pay for additional youth workers, volunteers, venue hire and activity resources for youth clubs. The first £3 million of the Million Hours Fund was allocated earlier this year.
This next phase will go to wards with high anti-social behavioural rates, with all local authorities having at least one ward eligible. Youth organisations can apply for over two years of revenue funding to extend their provision. The deadline for applying is 12noon on 24 November. More information here.
Additionally, the government’s commitment to the next phase of the Adventures Away From Home Fund will provide £1.5mn of bursary funding for up to 7,500 disadvantaged young people. Participants such as young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and young carers will be given the opportunity to try new activities such as zip-lining, kayaking and cooking, supporting the development of skills like teamwork and problem solving.
This builds on last year’s scheme where over 3,500 young people had the opportunity to take part in this programme from across the country.
SSE announces £15mn customer support fund for charities and businesses
Around 8000 charities will receive a £500 credit towards their energy bills as part of a £4mn package of support made available to customers with registered charitable status.
SSE, which sold its GB household energy business to OVO Energy in 2020, is making the money available as part of a larger £15mn fund for a range of business customers supplied by its non-domestic energy provider, SSE Energy Solutions.
Any organisation that signed up for energy deals between 1 August and 31 December 2022 on longer-term fixed contracts will also be eligible for the support.
This fund is a continuation of the support SSE Energy Solutions has provided to customers throughout the pandemic and the energy price crisis.
Community Ownership Fund open for applications until 11 October
The government’s Community Ownership Fund, which supports communities to run institutions like pubs, museums and sports clubs, is currently open for applications. For the first time, groups can apply for up to £2mn.
To date, the Community Ownership Fund has supported 195 projects across the UK. This includes £4 million shared between 18 projects in Wales.
Recently, it was announced that a pub once frequented by the poet Dylan Thomas is one of three Welsh projects set to receive £770,057 in government funding to help keep them open. The Vale of Aeron pub in Ceredigion, a favourite haunt of the poet when he lived nearby in the 1940s, will use the £300,000 investment for renovations to secure its future and make it accessible to the whole community.
£187,557 will also be given to the Judge’s Lodging Museum in Powys to preserve the historic old court building and sustain its financial resilience so it can continue to be a fully functioning museum.
This most recent round saw changes come into effect that meant all projects could bid for up to £1 million in funding, not just sports clubs as before, and the amount organisations needed to match fund decreased to 20%.
It also marked the first time applicants could receive support with the development of their application and business case, through the Community Ownership Fund development support provider, led by Locality.
The round now open for applications is offering up to £2mn per project for the first time.
Kent Community Foundation to offer 1-1 funding advice to charities and community groups across Kent and Medway
The sessions are being introduced to give charitable organisations the opportunity to gain advice and information from experienced grant-makers Kent Community Foundation about how to draft a compelling application and what detail to include to give it the best possible chance of being funded.
The new funding sessions are designed to support either organisations that have not applied to Kent Community Foundation before or for those that have applied unsuccessfully in the past.
The sessions will be held online or if groups prefer, they can meet one of the grant team in person at the Foundation’s office in Ashford. There may also be occasions when the Kent Community Foundation team will go to visit the group’s headquarters to see organisations in action, meet their teams and the people they work with.
Sessions can be booked either pre or post application and are designed to benefit those who fill out the applications. However, if other staff, volunteers or trustees would like to find out more about how Kent Community Foundation uses their experience to administer funding from over ninety philanthropic funds to grass roots charities, they are welcome to attend. The sessions will also give organisations the opportunity to discuss how their project or services fit into the Foundation’s five funding priorities: ‘children, young people and families’, ‘elderly and isolated adults’, ‘vulnerable adults’, the ‘environment’ and ‘employability, skills and enterprise’.
Charites and community groups can book a 1-1 30-minute funding session to ask anything that helps them to understand how Kent Community Foundation grant-making works, and to get specific advice on their particular application by emailing kathryn at kentcf.org.uk
NCS Trust and the Department for Culture, Media & Sport award £1mn to UK Year of Service programme
NCS Trust (National Citizen Service – NCS) and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) will jointly fund this year’s UK Year of Service programme – a national employability programme for 18-24 year olds.
The funding will enable UK Year of Service to build on a three-year pilot, which supported 336 young people in paid work placements lasting 9-12 months and engaged 82 employers.
NCS will use around £250k to fund the programme until the end of March 2024 while DCMS have awarded around £750k from April 2024, giving a total of £1mn to cover placements for a further 100 young people. The funding also includes skills training, wrap-around support within and beyond placement and support for exit routes into further education and employment.
NCS is also looking for more organisations that will sponsor places for young people – perhaps as part of their ESG Policy. Organisations interested in hosting a placement can email the UK Year of Service team at businessdevelopment at ncstrust.org.uk. NCS will be posting on social media channels when the application process for placement delivery partners is ready to go live.
Cancer Research UK and France’s Institut National Du Cancer (INCa) announce partnership to help fund researchers through the global Cancer Grand Challenges initiative
Cancer Grand Challenges was founded in 2020 by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the US. The ambition is to build ‘a scientifically elite, interdisciplinary community who can fill in some of our biggest knowledge gaps in cancer and drive the progress we urgently need.’
INCa’s participation in Cancer Grand Challenges brings on board France’s foremost cancer research institute. INCa is the first to pledge funds – €10mn (£8.6mn) – to support multiple teams in a single round of Cancer Grand Challenges, alongside the initiative’s original founding partners.
INCa’s investment will help to fund the next round of Cancer Grand Challenges teams.
There are currently 12 shortlisted teams each competing for the chance to secure up to £20m for their global research projects in the latest round of challenges. Winning teams will be announced to the world in March 2024.
Cancer Grand Challenges brings together a range of international organisations, collaborators and research leaders, including the Scientific Foundation of the Spanish Association Against Cancer, the Dutch Cancer Society, and The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research. To date, more than £210mn has been invested in the initiative.
Northern Gas Networks (NGN) seeks additional partners across Yorkshire, northern Cumbria and the North East
Having rolled out 65 projects supporting customers in vulnerable situations, gas distributor Northern Gas Networks (NGN) is now seeking to cast its net wider, and is looking for additional partners across Yorkshire, northern Cumbria and the North East.
NGN works closely with several partners across the region where it operates. Through its Ofgem-funded Vulnerability and Carbon Monoxide (CO) Allowance (VCMA), it provides funding to organisations providing practical solutions to the problems people face when struggling to keep their homes warm.
Organisations interested in hearing more about funding available through Northern Gas Networks, can get in touch with Stephanie Ord at SOrd at northerngas.co.uk.
Related posts
£22m funding package announced to commemorate Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
Brevio data reveals causes with greatest disparity between funding needs & available grants
£10,000 grants available from Heart Research UK, & other funding opportunities
Funding news: opportunities for community, art, road safety projects & more
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.