Deadline: 5-May-23
The Hampshire & Isle of Wight Community Foundation (HiWCF) is seeking applications for the Including Communities Grant.
Including Communities offers 12-month grants of £1,000 – £10,000 for not-for-profit community organisations. They will only make grants to organisations based in AND supporting work within Hampshire (including Portsmouth and Southampton) and the Isle of Wight.
HIWCF’s core aim is to tackle poverty and inequality. Including Communities will deliver on their core aim by helping to build ‘flourishing’ and connected communities. They think that communities flourish when local community activities and services regularly bring people together and when these activities and services are shaped by local people/ people from the target community.
Funding Information
- Minimum Grant: £1,000
- Maximum Grant: £10,000
Location: Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, Southampton.
Target Beneficiaries
- They welcome bids from organisations working with groups of people who are living in poverty, facing discrimination, or isolated. Make sure you tell us in your application about the target groups you are working with and how you work to make your activities accessible and inclusive for these people.
What does a strong application look like?
- To help us understand how your bid matches their criteria you must meet all three of their programme criteria detailed.
- Please have a read of these case studies as examples of work that meet all three of their programme criteria. All examples are fictitious and for illustrative purposes only.
- Forever Friends, based on the Isle of Wight. This charity supports isolated older people. It wants to use an Including Communities grant of £8,600 to pay towards its part-time Activities Co-Ordinator who runs a weekly music group where older people meet, play music together and have a good chat.
How does this bid meet the programme criteria?
- The project works with people on low incomes, many have found recent cost-of-living rises hard to cope with. A recent survey found that participants feel excluded and isolated from the local community.
- The project regularly brings around 15-20 older people together in a safe and accessible community venue. A key aim of the project is to connect local people and tackle isolation.
- Forever Friends makes sure that it is shaped by its community of older people by having a steering group run by participants – they decide all the details of the sessions from the time of day the group meets to the type of music they play.
- Cooking Collaborative, based in Southampton. This constituted community group was set up to provide services for the Indian community living in this ward. The group is led by five Indian women. The focus is on running fortnightly cooking session where families from the local area can cook and share food. Around 80% of participants are from the Indian community, but all local people are welcome.
- It wants to use an Including Communities grant of £2,500 to pay towards its volunteer costs of running the sessions, for room hire, and for small items such as reusable plates.
Eligibility Criteria
- They welcome bids from: registered charities; charitable incorporated organisations (CIOs); companies limited by guarantee; community interest companies (limited by guarantee); and constituted community organisations (with a written constitution).
- They always have a high number of applications for their Including Communities grant programme – in 2022 they only had enough funding to cover 24% of applications received. Applications made to Including Communities will need to meet ALL three of the following programme-criteria – if they are not clear about these three elements, they will be scored as ineligible:
- Your application must be for work that reaches people living hard and challenging lives. Your bid should make clear how the requested funding will reach people who are living in poverty, facing discrimination, or isolated.
- Your application must be for work that regularly brings together members of the community (e.g. support groups, social action projects, volunteering, community groups).
- Your application must show how local people/ people from your target community helped to shape this work – this could be through these people being consulted, volunteering, or leading the work.
- Additional Programme Criteria:
- This programme is part of their Flourishing Communities impact theme – please select this impact theme when making your application.
- Your grant application can be for new or existing community activities and services.
- They want to help you run these activities over the next 12-months so they will cover staff and volunteer costs, activity costs and a proportionate contribution to the core costs of your organisation to deliver this work.
- They will not fund capital costs, one-off events or large items of equipment.
- This fund is for grass-roots organisations and priority will be given to organisations with an income under £1million (with some funds reserved for organisations with an income under £100,000). They will assess each grant request value against the size of the applicant organisation (they advise that smaller groups do not apply for grants greater than 30% of their annual income – so for example a group with an income of £10,000 could be awarded up to £3,000).
For more information, visit HiWCF.