Participants sought to help improve process of finding & applying for government grants
Melanie May | 10 January 2022 | News
The Government Grants Management Function, which works across government to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its grant funding, is seeking civil society organisations and small to medium-sized businesses to help shape a new pilot that seeks to make it simpler, faster and fairer for civil society and SMEs across the UK to find and apply for funding.
With no single go-to place to find or apply for government grants, and an often complicated, time-consuming and costly application process, the aim is to make it simpler, faster and fairer for people and organisations to access government grants.
The team is led by Lucia Webster – Grants Applicant Programme (GAP), Delivery Director, and has until March 2023 to prove this is possible. To start, it aims to have new online services co-created and ready to test with a small sample of grants in spring this year.
Advertisement
The immediate focus will be to co-create and test a service that can do three things:
- publicise grants in one place with equal and fair access for all
- provide the ability to find grants that match needs criteria in one place
- provide timely communication and notification on available grants
To do this, it is asking for people from a cross-section of civil society organisations and small to medium-sized businesses, who have or would like to apply for government grants, to sign up to be part of its Government Grants Community and the research panel, and help.
It has already spoken with prospective applicants from more than 25 organisations and grant administrators across government departments to identify the current difficulties with applying for government funding, and is also asking people to give feedback on its findings.
Updates are being published in a Government Grants Community blog, which also provides information on the team and how to get in touch.
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.