Call for Applications: U18 Better Starts Grant (United Kingdom)

Deadline: 24-May-24

The Asda Foundation has announced the applications for Under 18s Better Starts grant to help give children the best start in life, tackling poverty, addressing inclusion and boosting wellbeing.

Asda Foundation’s goal is to build resilient communities by empowering local groups to make a positive difference, addressing local challenges and social needs. They aim to achieve this by providing funding to local grassroots community groups to enable them to meet the diverse needs of their community and to help them thrive and grow.

The Under 18s Better Starts (U18 BS) grant is one of three grants within the ‘Grassroots Grants’ programme, the broadest grant programme which aims to empower the Community Champions and grassroots groups to apply for what’s important in local communities.

They appreciate that each group and the need in each local area is different; however, there are some common factors they think are important for any organisation they support:

• True to their community mission 
  • Organisations which are clear on what they aim to achieve and consistently strive towards achieving it.
• People Centred
  • They are people focused and place individuals at the heart of what they do and why they do it. They promote equality, inclusivity, and diversity.
• Efficiently Run 
  • A well run and organised group with processes in place to comply with not-forprofit requirements and have the skills and ability to do what they aim to achieve.
• Locally Focused 
  • The space is focused on the local community, delivering services and support to multiple beneficiaries and tackle the needs locally adapting to change to remain relevant.

Funding Information

• Minimum Grant Value £400
• Maximum Grant value £2,000

Funding Categories

• Essentials: Funding for the essentials to address an immediate need and/or situation.
• Transform/Improve: Funding to transform and/or improve a space/activity.
• Connect Together: Funding to bring children together, encouraging community connections £400 max for any one-off event, 1 event per group.
• Volunteering: Funding to support Volunteer costs enabling them to continue supporting their groups and communities £120 cap per volunteer.

What they fund?

• This grant is for groups who support solely under 18s in your community (for example, school holiday clubs and youth groups):
  • Essentials:
    • Food and hygiene items
    • Blankets, bedding and essential clothing
  • Transform/Improve:
    • Furniture and long-term fixtures
    • Decorating items
    • Items and equipment for group activities – this should be for service users only
    • Training, upskilling one off costs for service users
  • Connect Together:
    • One-off workshop costs
    • Essential sports clothing (£400 max)
    • Board games, food and refreshments.
    • Celebration events and meals (max £12.50 per person food costs). A total of £100 can be spent on decorations, entertainment and single use items
  • Volunteering:
    • DBS checks
    • Essential training course costs
    • Travel costs to the volunteering location and for delivering services
    • Refreshment costs
    • Stationary, clothing/uniform

Eligibility Criteria

• A total income under £1 Million 
  • Your organisation must have an income under £1 Million. You will be asked to confirm your income level on the application form. You may be asked to provide evidence of your annual accounts. Ringfencing won’t be accepted for smaller branches of national organisations, or smaller projects/groups which are managed and run by a parent organisation whose income exceeds £1m. These groups must be able to demonstrate separate finances, accounts and governance to be able to apply.
• Governing documents 
  • This can be a Constitution or Memorandum and Articles of Association. Your documents should be signed and outline your non-profit status and what would happen to your assets upon dissolution.
• A Safeguarding Policy 
  • Your policy should be up to date and specific to your group.
• A bank account that accepts cheques, and a bank statement which verifies the payee name 
  • They are unable to make payment any other way. You must have an account in the name of the group. They can’t make payments to individual people, i.e. personal accounts. If the payee group named is different from the applicant group they will need a ring fence email from the treasurer of the payee group stating the money will only be used for the purpose in the application form.
• Suitable governance 
  • Be able to demonstrate that you have suitable governance to be able to manage funds from Asda Foundation. E.g., Financial reporting, Safeguarding, committee meetings.
• Visible local presence
  • There must be information available online which shows your active work within the community.
• Human Beneficiaries 
  • The end beneficiaries should be community groups of people.
• No other Grassroots Grants this calendar year
  • Groups can only have 1 successful Grassroots Grant each year. And must not apply to multiple stores. If you are unsuccessful in your application, you may apply again in the next round.
• Reasonable fees for your activity/event 
  • Groups which charge more than a nominal fee to participate (i.e., membership charges) are ineligible from applying. This can vary from group to group depending on the nature of the service you provide.

Ineligible Groups

• They don’t accept applications from groups which:
  • Are based outside the UK or benefit people/communities outside of the UK.
  • Have animal welfare as their main focus.
  • Are third party grant making organisations (grantees must directly deliver the service/activity).
  • Promote ‘Pub Culture’.
  • Are schools (PTAs with their own bank account are welcome to apply).
  • Have a clear affiliation with a particular political party

Language

• All applications, documents and communication must be in English.

For more information, visit Asda Foundation.