Community Inclusion Grant in the UK

Deadline: 30-Oct-22

Portsmouth City Council’s Community Inclusion Fund seeks to support communities who would like to focus on advancing equality, preventing discrimination, and promoting inclusion. Applications are being sought from voluntary/community sector organisations for one-off projects and initiatives designed to support activities which challenge inequality, advance equality and celebrate diversity in Portsmouth.

Grants will assist in:

Enhancing equalities, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across the city.
Promoting EDI initiatives across the city.
Supporting communities and residents with protected characteristics.
Advancing community cohesion and diversity.
Tackling inequalities.

The purpose of this grant scheme is to support voluntary and community sector organisations that acknowledge the diverse residents in the city, including the difficulties some of them encounter, and want to promote equality and inclusion.

Aims

To empower voluntary and community groups to be:

More inclusive.
Prevent discrimination.
Improve equality.
Challenge inequality.
Celebrate diversity.
Support for protected characteristic, minority, disadvantaged groups.

Funding Information

The programme is offering grants of up to £1,000.
These are one off and non-recuring. The duration and length of the project can vary but all funds should be awarded by December 2022.
Any grant awarded under this scheme is for is a one-off grant and there should be no expectation of further funding in the future.

Outcomes Required

Projects which deliver one or more of the following outcomes:
- Activities which aim to eliminate discrimination and advance equality by improving outcomes and access for people to services, information and/or employment. Includes awareness training of equality, diversity and inclusion.
- Activities which celebrate, encourage or raise awareness of diverse cultures/identities by bringing people together with an aim to build strong and cohesive communities and/or reduce prejudice or hate crimes and incidents.
- Activities which provide support for protected characteristic, minority, disadvantaged groups by reducing isolation, building resilience and independence, helping people stay safe, helping people learn or prosper, or helping people stay healthy – particularly where there is an identified health inequality.
The Council requires all applications to demonstrate an element of innovation, either in the project they are seeking to deliver or in the way it is intended to be delivered.
While partnership working is not essential, those applications which are able to demonstrate this in a significant way are likely to score higher when being assessed. It is recognised that applicants will have varying levels of resources and connections, therefore some flexibility will be permitted in terms of the level of partnership working.

Eligibility Criteria

If you can answer “yes” to all of the questions below, you can apply for a grant.
- Is your idea innovative or creative and will it support equality, inclusion and prevent discrimination?
- Is your idea ‘not for profit’? This means that your idea is intended to help other people and not for your own financial gain.
- Does your organisation have a bank account?
- A constitution.
- Policy for safeguarding.
- Insurance.
As part of the non-for-profit nature of your organisation, all payments from the main bank account must require authorisation by two people.

Criteria

A range of council officers working with communities across the city, as well as representatives from partners in the voluntary & community sector, will be invited to score applications on set criteria; these scores will be used to inform a final decision from the Cabinet member.

The panel will score against the following criteria: