Amazon Literary Partnership grants now open, plus more funding news & opportunities
Melanie May | 28 November 2024 | News
A round up of grants made and funding available, including grants for nonprofit literary organisations, and for not-for-profit organisations and social enterprises aiming to support young people through physical activity and sport.
Applications for Amazon Literary Partnership grants now open
The Amazon Literary Partnership (ALP) is back for its sixth year, providing grants to nonprofit literary organisations that support and champion writers of all ages and stages on their writing journey. In 2024, ALP supported 37 organisations – more than ever before – and opened up its support to organisations in Republic of Ireland.
The 2025 edition is now open until 31 January. Applicants must be a registered nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland, with a core mission of developing emerging writers, support diversity, celebrate storytelling, and/or build authors’ careers.
Advertisement
More information here and here.
School for Social Entrepreneurs opens applications to Go! London Match. Trade. Grow programme
Funded by the Go! London Partnership and delivered by the School for Social Entrepreneurs, Match. Trade. Grow will support not-for-profit organisations and social enterprises aiming to support young people through physical activity and sport, particularly young people from underserved communities.
Match. Trade. Grow is designed to help organisations build financial resilience through trading activities while investing in youth sports. This might mean generating income through direct sports-related activities, such as contracts with schools or local authorities, or through unrelated ventures like catering or merchandise, with profits used to support youth sports initiatives
On offer is a Match Trading grant of up to £25,000 combined with learning support worth over £11,000. This includes eight days of learning and study visits tailored to the group’s specific needs. Expert witness sessions and peer group ‘action learning’ will help participants gain the skills, knowledge, and confidence to expand their trading activity and develop their leadership capacity.
The deadline to apply for the programme is 1pm Wednesday 15 January.
More information here.
Cancer Research UK’s LCCE to receive funding support from ScottishPower
Cancer Research UK has revealed that its Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence (LCCE) will receive up to £4mn of funding support from long-standing corporate partner, ScottishPower.
The announcement comes after ScottishPower agreed to renew the partnership with Cancer Research UK, which began in 2012, for a further five years. As part of this partnership, ScottishPower is aiming to reach a target of £50mn by 2029.
ScottishPower, along with its customers and staff, has supported Cancer Research UK for 12 years through a range of fundraising initiatives. Since the partnership began, ScottishPower has raised a total of £40mn for Cancer Research UK, including through its Help Beat Cancer energy tariff, employee and customer fundraising, as well as sponsorship of CRUK’s Race for Life events across the UK and Stand Up To Cancer campaigns.
More on funding from ScottishPower here.
Rothesay Foundation donates £2.47 million to expand Age UK benefits check service for older people
The Rothesay Foundation launched a pilot campaign with Age UK in 2023 to help fund its free confidential benefits check service for older people. This helped more than 4,500 participants find out whether they were eligible for state benefits, in person and through a dedicated telephone advice line. 76% of those in the pilot group were eligible for benefits they were not claiming. From this pilot group, an average of £6,600 in additional benefits was identified per person, amounting to a total of £23 million.
The expanded service aims to identify up to a further £55 million over the next two years, supporting over 11,000 older people through the partnership. The additional funding of £2.47 million will support 11 local Age UKs to deliver benefits checks in local communities, providing dedicated staff to guide older people through the application process which includes help filling out the forms. Age UK will also hire additional staff for its UK national Advice Line to provide the same service over the telephone, and the funding will support Age UK to follow up with callers on the progress and outcome of their claim, helping them navigate the benefits process.
More on Rothesay Foundation’s funding here.
People’s Postcode Lottery players have raised £30 million for WWF
Players of People’s Postcode Lottery have supported WWF’s conservation work across the globe for 15 years, through more than £30 million in funding.
Following the recent development of Kenya’s Black Rhino Action Plan, supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, rhino numbers reached over 1,000 in February 2024. In addition, since 2021, supported by players of Postcode and in partnership with the British Antarctic Survey, WWF has been asking the public to become ‘Walrus Detectives’, searching for and counting walrus in thousands of satellite images taken from space.
The funding has also supported the first ever exact count of lions in Kenya and Tanzania to better understand these animals; restoration of 900 hectares of freshwater and mangrove habitats in Lamu, Kenya with the British Red Cross; and work in the Amazon to strengthen the co-existence between people and species such as jaguars and river dolphins while protecting the Amazon.
In the UK, the ongoing support is also enabling WWF to pioneer a new approach to tackle climate change, restoring nature across land, rivers, coasts, and sea, with communities at the heart, starting with pilots in Norfolk’s countryside and the coastlines of Pembrokeshire.
More on funding opportunities from People’s Postcode Lottery here.
£3mn grant from Pears Foundation to support Eden Project’s The Big Lunch
Eden Project has announced a new £3 million grant from Pears Foundation (an invitation only foundation) to deliver The Big Lunch from 2025-2027.
Anchoring The Big Lunch with Pears Foundation support over three years means Eden Project can continue campaigning to bring people together in neighbourhoods and communities UK wide every year in June. Eden Project originally conceived the idea in 2009 as the UK’s Thanksgiving Day for neighbours and advocates for The Big Lunch to become a dedicated national event to foster neighbour and community connection in the UK calendar.
Pears Foundation has supported Eden Project’s Nature Connections programme for five years. The Big Lunch funding marks a new phase of support.
In 2024 10 million people participated in The Big Lunch. Next year’s event will take place on 7-8 June, kicking off the Month of Community.
Related posts
£1mn awarded to NHS charities by Greener Communities Fund, & more grant news
Amazon Literary Partnership announces 2024 grant recipients, plus more funding updates
Grants for drop-in hubs to help young people with their mental health, plus more funding news
Applications open for 2025’s Big Give Green Match Fund, plus more funding news
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.