Deadline: 8-Sep-20
Leeds Community Foundation is currently seeking applications for the Covid-19 Strategic Infrastructure Grants.
Following the distribution of over £2m of grants in Leeds since April 2020 to grassroots organisations through both emergency response and resilience funding, they are now pleased to be able to provide larger grants for organisations providing new, or additional infrastructure support to communities as a result of the
pandemic.
By infrastructure activity they mean:
- playing a role in co-ordinating activity taking place across the city in response to the pandemic
- connecting people or organisations at a cross-city level to work together to alleviate the impact of Covid-19 on vulnerable people
- acting as “systems leaders” in a locality or within a particular community of people to ensure a coordinated response to needs arising as a result of the pandemic
Applications are welcome from both infrastructure organisations, and other types of organisation that are
providing infrastructure support at this time. Activity can be about preventing further negative impacts on communities, or focussed on relieving the adverse effects faced by communities now: or both.
This funding is available as the result of a partnership with National Emergencies Trust and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and thus is subject to different monitoring requirements to many of their grants, and must be spent by the end March 2021. It cannot be used to cover retrospective costs and your use of the grant may be subject to financial audit by a representative of DCMS following award.
Funding Information
- They will be able to make a minimum of 6-10 grants between £15,000 and £25,000 per grant.
- The grant must not represent more than 25% of your annual turnover during the grant expenditure period (equivalent to 12.5% of turnover per annum). This means to apply for a grant of £25,000 for example, you need to have an annual turnover of £200,000 or above.
What can the Fund support?
Funding will be targeted at:
- Applications working to combat hardship including economic, social or health impacts caused by the pandemic
- Applications that support the ongoing needs of vulnerable people to ensure that their health and
wellbeing is maintained including those who are self-isolating, community response co-ordination
and informal groups responding to the crisis - Applications in support of activities that relieve pressure on local statutory services, particularly
emergency or health and social care provision, or compliment their response - Applications supporting people or communities of interest who have been disproportionately affected
they know that Covid-19 has had a disproportionately negative impact on black and minority ethnic
communities, who were already less likely to receive fair access to funding: thus they are particularly keen to
fund infrastructure approaches led by people from within these communities. They will also prioritise
applications serving communities of interest and those have not yet reached with smaller grant
funding since the start of Covid-19; namely gypsy and traveller communities.
They will prioritise applications that are building on co-ordinated responses that have arisen as a result of the
pandemic. They will also prioritise those where the approach taken can be embedded longer-term in the local
system following the end of the grant period.
The Fund will not Support
Grants will not be awarded to or for:
- For-profit organisations, statutory organisations (e.g. schools and hospitals) or overseas organisations
- Retrospective funding (activity and costs that have already taken place)
- Grant-making to other organisations and/or individuals
- Activity targeted at a particular group (ethnic, gender, religious etc.) without a good justification for this
- Activity that promotes a particular political or religious point of view
- Activity primarily for the benefit of animals
- Individuals
- Expeditions or overseas travel
- Capital appeals for building projects
Eligibility Criteria
Not-for-profit organisations or social enterprises that:
- Have a constitution or other relevant governance document
- Have a management committee/board of directors/trustees of at least three unrelated people, none of whom have significant control
- Have a bank account under the name of the group with at least two unrelated signatories
- Are based in and supporting people living in Leeds
For more information, visit https://leedscf.org.uk/grants/covid-19-strategic-infrastructure-grants-leeds/