Deadline: 18-Sep-20
The Community Justice Fund is a joint initiative to help specialist social welfare legal advice organizations cope with the immediate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lay the foundations for longer-term renewal. This fund will support the key role that specialist social welfare legal advice agencies play in providing essential support to people and communities now and as they plan for life after the crisis.
It is made up of contributions from a range of sources, including funds from independent foundations, donors, the Ministry of Justice, and a £5m grant from The National Lottery Community Fund’s COVID-19 crisis response funding, made possible by players of The National Lottery. The Fund is made up of contributions from a range of sources, including government.
Therefore, it is focused on the needs of specialist social welfare legal advice organizations. They aim to help these organizations be effective and sustainable in the face of responding to COVID-19. They will provide flexible support so that organizations can respond to these challenges in ways that they feel best meets their needs but for which they do not currently have the funds.
Priorities
- For organizations that meet these eligibility criteria, applications will be assessed competitively and prioritized against the following areas and funds awarded accordingly:
- The organization:
- will put a flexible grant to good use in addressing the aims of the fund;
- plays a leadership or coordinating role in a particular area of law, or in supporting a beneficiary group with particular needs, such as victims of trafficking or disabled people;
- plays a leadership or coordinating role in a particular area of the UK, especially where specialist advice services are already scarce;
- makes strategic use of law so as to maximize the impact of day-to-day casework;
- works collaboratively as part of a wider network of organizations helping to meet legal needs;
- uses its influence in local and national policy circles;
- will capture and share insights and lessons that will help inform future work.
Funding Information
- The size of the grant awarded will depend on a number of factors including the size of your organization and the cost and scale of the support needed. They anticipate making grants in the range £25,000 – £75,000, but may be able to make larger grants in certain circumstances.
Principles
- Intelligent: seeking intelligence from those on the ground about what is needed and feeding this in continually to funder responses.
- Straightforward: seeking to do the possible not the perfect in a fast-changing environment and dealing with unexpected difficulties in a straightforward way.
- Easy: simplified processes to multiple funders for applicants under severe personal and professional stress: a single application form, light-touch due diligence, and one reporting channel.
- Quick: a commitment to an appropriate speed, recognizing that crisis responses need to be very fast but there will also be a need for more reflective responses over time.
- Trusting: managing risk through relationships, putting trust at the heart of what they do.
- Equitable: ensuring that funding decisions are as inclusive as possible and take account of the diversity of the sector – particularly of smaller organizations and organizations working with and led by marginalized communities.
- Flexible: making grants flexible in order that organizations can adapt activities, outcomes, and deadlines as the situation changes.
- Reflective: building in learning and insight into how the sector is changing and preparing to embed the best elements in day to day practice when the crisis is over.
- Influential seeking to use the learning and insights gathered through the fund and collaboration in order to influence the wider environment to support the sector in its response.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible for funding, an organization must be:
- registered with the Charity Commission and working in the UK;
- able to demonstrate a track record of delivering legal advice in one or more of the following areas of law: asylum, community care, debt, disability, discrimination, education, employment, housing, immigration, mental health, public and administrative law and welfare benefits
- able to demonstrate a track record in delivering advice at a specialist level including carrying out end-to-end casework for clients, carrying out representation in a court or tribunal and/or holding legal aid contracts
- They are not able to support generalist advice agencies, private sector legal aid practices, or individuals.
Applications will be assessed by representatives of the funders contributing to the Community Justice Fund and grants will be awarded through the Access to Justice Foundation. Law Centre applications will be assessed through the Law Centres Network process.
For more information, visit https://www.communityjusticefund.org.uk/