From multi-million-pound grants to support children’s play to small pots of money to help meet research costs and membership fees, there is a raft of funding opportunities available now for charities.
Here we look at the latest funding and grants available to charities to help them better support their beneficiaries.
Lego charity offers £100m to promote play
The Lego Foundation has launched a £100m global fund to promote children’s learning and play.
The Build A World of Play Challenge has been launched by the charitable arm of the toy manufacturer to fund schemes that support the development of young people.
Charities and organisations from around the world are invited to apply for funding with “ideas that transform early childhood experiences while addressing global social issues to ensure that all young children grow up in safe, nurturing and stimulating environments”, according to the Foundation.
Introducing: the 900 million DKK #BuildaWorldofPlay Challenge. It’s an open call to share impactful solutions that centre on children from birth to six. We encourage organisations around the world to join this challenge. Click here to find out more: https://t.co/W8uVlyyIQo pic.twitter.com/kXJ8sSv8Tp
— The LEGO Foundation (@LEGOfoundation) February 16, 2022
Registration for this funding ends on 7 April. Ten finalists will be selected in September. Each will receive around £700,000 to develop their initiative.
By the end of the year the Foundation plans to announce up to five awards, three will receive grants of £22m each and two will be handed £11m grants.
London Mayor launches funding to tackle inequality
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has created a £1m Civil Society Roots fund to help tackle inequalities in the capital.
On offer are grants of between £1,000 and £50,000 to bolster collaboration, commission research, recruit staff and invest in community resources.
The Fund has been set up by City Hall and the City Bridge Trust and applications close on 22 April.
The programme is particularly keen to tackle inequality experienced by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, people with disabilities as well as LGBTQ+ Londoners, women and older people.
Grants to support young people’s mental health
The Prudence Trust is offering grants worth between £30,000 and £150,000 to support mental health provision for 11- to 25-year-olds with signs of depression and anxiety.
The More Places To Go for Help fund is worth £1.5m in total.
Charities in London with experience of running mental health or young people’s support services are being urged to apply before the deadline of 14 March.
“We know that one in eight children and young people have a clinical mental health disorder, and that there are long waiting lists to get help and simply not enough places to go for support where young people feel comfortable,” said the Trust.
“We hope our funding will enable charities that are already offering excellent services to do even more.”
Funding to combat social injustice
Housing charity Commonweal Housing is inviting applications for its £50,000 annual fund to help charities carry out feasibility studies for projects to tackle social injustice.
It is looking to fund initiatives that support housing needs of domestic abuse survivors and ex-offenders snf address transition points in people’s lives, such as when they leave the asylum system.
This is the third year the charity’s Call for New Ideas fund has been operating. It is particularly keen to hear from BAME-led and focused charities.
“As the housing crisis deepens, the already marginalised are often hit the hardest, doubling their disadvantage,” said Commonweal Housing chief executive Amy Doyle.
Support to tackle social exclusion
The VINCI UK Foundation is inviting applications for its 2022 grant scheme, to tackle social exclusion and support disadvantaged communities.
VINCI UK Foundation opens 2022 grant applications to combat social exclusion.https://t.co/XcnmlcSYzz#VINCIUKFoundation #socialexclusion #communities #SolidarityEffect pic.twitter.com/vdj3X6kGHg
— VINCI Energies UK (@VINCIEnergiesUK) January 6, 2022
Charities working to improve access to jobs, training, housing, mobility, and leisure in areas of disadvantage are urged to apply for the funding by the deadline of 31 March.
On offer is grants of up to £20,000 as well as support from a VINCI staff member.
Digital inclusion grants available
Virgin Media O2 and charity Hubbub have launched a £400,000 Tech Lending Community Fund to tackle digital exclusion.
On offer are grants of between £50,000 and £120,000 to set up lending hubs of devices to be loaned to residents in temporary accommodation.
Charities are urged to apply by the deadline of 1 March.
“For those in temporary accommodation, connectivity is a lifeline,” said Virgin Media O2 head of sustainability Tracey Herald.
Virgin Media O2 and Hubbub added: “Successful applicants will need to demonstrate that they will be actively collaborating with community groups to ensure that the provision of a tablet loaning service will have a transformative impact.”
Insurer offers £3.25m funding to charities
Insurer NFU Mutual is donating £3.25m to support local and national charities in 2022.
This includes £1m through the NFU Mutual Charitable Trust, set up as an independent charity by the insurer more than 20 years ago to support charities working in the interests of rural communities.
The deadlines for applications for the NFU Charitable Trust funding are 27 May and 28 October. Trustees meet twice a year, in June and November, to consider applications.
Meanwhile, £1.92m is being delivered through the insurer’s annual Agency Giving Fund, which is handed out by 300 local branches and agencies who nominate local charities for funding.
More information on the Agency Giving Fund can be found here.
Rewilding funding
Rewilding Britain is offering grants of up to £15,000 each to charities and community groups, land managers and farmers to support marine and land rewilding projects.
This was piloted last year and it is hoped between 15 and 20 projects can be supported this time around.
Applications close on 31 March. There will be two further rounds of applications later in the year.
📣 Launching today! Our new Rewilding Innovation Fund.
— Rewilding Britain (@RewildingB) February 15, 2022
Created to foster the scale and ambition of locally-led and marine nature rewilding projects.
You could get up to £15k to take your project one step WILDER!
Apply now: https://t.co/wFrVj6PIjB
📸 @Whatifyoujustl1 pic.twitter.com/ylgzXu9klY
“The new fund comes at a time when rewilding is seeing huge levels of support from the public,” said Rewilding Britain.
It says that a recent YouGov survey showed that four in five Britons (81%) support rewilding.
Green Funding for North West charities
Eco-I North West, a research and development programme involving six universities in the North West of England has launched a £400,000 Capital Grant Scheme to help charities and social enterprises in the region meet green commitments.
On offer is 60% of funding towards projects worth between £5,000 and £25,000 that deliver sustainable products and services.
Grants will support projects that can be completed and paid for by the end of March 2023.
“I would encourage leaders of enterprises in the North West to start a conversation with us about how Eco-I NW could help to reduce costs and their carbon footprint, improve performance, and future proof their business in a low carbon future,” said Andy Pickard, manager of the Centre for Global Eco-Innovation, which delivers the programme.
Funder pays for membership fees
City Bridge Trust is offering a limited number of charities free membership to the Charity Tax Group, to help them access the support this sector body offers around taxation matters.
London based charities - claim your funded one-year membership contribution to @CharityTaxGroup! The @CityBridgeTrust has provided funding to enable CTG to engage, support and represent charities in #London on fiscal & tax matters #charitytax https://t.co/2dogwpbJ6M pic.twitter.com/q4bhjibRww
— Charity Tax Group (@CharityTaxGroup) February 18, 2022
This offer is available to London charities to meet the costs for the first year, which are between £250 and £800 a year depending on the size of the charity.
More information can be found here.
Help for research projects
To mark its rebrand, charity sector consultancy nfpResearch (formerly nfpSynergy), is offering funding to small charities to gain access to free research.
It has set up an annual £10,000 fund to support charities to “solve their research and strategic questions”.
More details of this Smaller Charities Research Fund will be announced soon by the agency.
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