Grant Funding and Applications
The voluntary and community sector, is often referred to as the 3rd sector, to a large extent is built and run on grant funding. These grants or funding comes from a variety of sources such as central government, regional development agencies (RDA’s) local councils (city, borough/district and metropolitan), parish and town councils. Funding is also available from European sources such as the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Social Fund (ESF).
Other statutory bodies such as Police, NHS, Homes & Communities Agency and literally many more statutory organisations have budgets specifically aimed at empowering and bringing about changes within their sectors.
As well as these statutory bodies, funding is also available from charities such as the National Lottery and literally hundreds more. Further to these, trust funds exist, set up by individuals and organisations for their own individual philanthropically held reasons.
Grants are potentially available from these organisations, for amounts large and/or small. Whether your community group requires perhaps a few hundred pounds for a trip or new equipment, or perhaps half a million ££££’s to build or refurbish a building for use by/within your community – GRANT £MONEY CAN DO THIS FOR YOUR COMMUNITY!
As you would expect the application processes for large and smaller applications are vastly different, as will be their terms and conditions. For a small amount the process will be relatively straight forward and not too time consuming. However, when you apply for larger amounts for example applications for amounts of around £10,000/£20,000 and more; the process will be more involved and more time consuming. It is likely to be more beneficial if your application builds a relationship between you. your organisation and the potential grant funding organisation – via your application.
Larger amounts often require 'matched funding'. This means, for example, if you wish to secure £20,000 by way of grant you may end up being funded by 2 funders (or more), often in equal amounts. The difficulty often here is getting the first offer of funding, which can then ‘unlock’ the second funding offer. Therefore, if your organisation can introduce some of it’s own funding this can be the lubrication needed to turn the 'funding wheel'
Our experience has shown that when some applicants received that 'all important – offer letter', they act like their work is done. Groups have been seen to sit back, get on with their project/initiative, often inadvertently not meeting the needs of their grant funder and potentially breaking the terms of their offer letter. Grants, always come with terms and conditions and it is the responsibility of you, the applicant to fulfil these.
Groups need to remember that if you apply and receive grant you are effectively developing a grant funding CV and funders like applicants who manage and administer their grant properly, meeting all the requirements of the agreement.
Who will write your application? Your choice here is to write the application yourself, or secure the services of someone to do it for you. This may be done for you voluntarily, or you may pay for the services of a professional, such as the partners of Community Acorns. If you are serious about regeneration - your applications and how you manage grant if you are successful in obtaining grant needs to be handled professionally and seriously throughout the whole process.
Un-successful grant applications are often unsuccessful because the project, and/or the applicant does not meet the needs or fulfil the criteria for grant. Many are also unsuccessful because the applicant didn’t take the application seriously, didn’t allow enough time to research prepare and build the application properly.
Tips on grant applications – do it properly, or get someone to do it for your organisation or group, Community Acorns will gladly perform this task for you.