Deadline: 13-May-24
Sainsbury’s Nourish the Nation programme, in partnership with Comic Relief, aims to tackle food poverty by helping people access the balanced, nutritional, and sustainable food they need, right now and in the future.
The Department for Education currently provides support to children (reception to year 11) who receive benefits-related free school meals through their Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme. The programme is delivered through local councils to children who receive free school meals (FSM) if their parents receive one of the qualifying benefits. There is evidence that some children who need support are missing out, and the scheme does not cover the whole summer – often 4 weeks of a 6-week holiday. This programme aims to improve/increase access for those children.
The aim of the Fund is to provide school children (up to Year 11) with improved access to summer holiday activity and food schemes. The programme will support organisations who already provide food and holiday activities to increase access and reach. It will also support organisations that currently do not provide such services but feel well-placed to deliver a summer food and activity scheme.
Sainsbury’s and Comic Relief can see the limitations of the current scheme and are keen to pilot a programme with the aim of:
- Providing food to children experiencing food poverty which will, in turn, increase their health and well-being.
- Developing a programme that addresses gaps in the current provision and reviewing the impact.
- Raising awareness of food poverty amongst children through storytelling and publicity to raise further funds.
- Showcasing how food poverty for children during the summer could be addressed differently to potentially develop a larger scale programme in the future.
Comic Relief has also identified a specific gap in supporting children and young people with a disability with food and activities during the summer and this fund is interested in supporting organisations that can support increased and/or improved access to schemes for children and young people with a disability.
Programme Priorities
- The programme will first prioritise applications from organisations looking to:
- Increase/improve access to holiday food and activity schemes for children with disabilities.
- Increase/improve access to holiday food and activity schemes for children experiencing food poverty.
- Deliver across the full six-weeks of summer school holidays.
Funding Information
- Organisations can apply for grants of up to £10,000.
- 10% of this can be allocated towards core organisational costs such as, but not limited to, rent, bills and staff costs.
- You can begin allocating funding to your project from 01 July for any preparation work required for delivery.
- Projects must begin delivery in line with the start of the 2024 school summer holidays for your borough and be completed by 13th September 2024 (this allows some time for wrapping up delivery).
Examples of projects that might be funded include:
- Expansion of an existing summer holiday food and activity programme, enabling more children to attend.
- A new food and activity scheme where an organisation is well placed to engage children and have the programme up and running in time for the start of the 2024 summer holidays.
- New ways to support children with disabilities to attend a holiday food and activity programme.
Location
- Applications to The London Community Foundation are welcome from organisations based in any London borough delivering projects and services to children and young people in London. Community foundations in Manchester, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are delivering similar programmes in their regions.
Eligibility Criteria
- They will fund organisations with a total annual income of up to £500,000 in their previous financial year. Organisations who have had an annual income over £500,000 in the previous financial year will not be eligible for funding.
- All posts (including staff members, sessional workers, part-time or full-time posts, freelance workers) funded by these grants must be paid at or above the London Living Wage (currently £13.15 per hour).
- Organisations must be based and delivering in London to children and young people living in London.
- These are LCF’s core eligibility criteria:
- Eligible Legal Structures
- Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)
- Company Limited by Guarantee (CLG) – may also be registered as a Charity or a Community Interest Company Limited by Guarantee (CICLG)
- Trust
- Unincorporated Association
- Community Benefit Societies (CBS). Ideally, the CBS will also be registered as charitable with HMRC, however this is not essential.
- Eligible Legal Structures
Ineligible
- The following types of organisation are not eligible:
- Companies limited by Shares (including CC limited by shares)
- Statutory organisations, such as schools
- NHS bodies
- Co-operative Societies
- The grant funds cannot be used for:
- activities that promote religious or political views,
- purely commercial ventures (for profit),
- spending that has already taken place (i.e. retrospective funding),
- individual sponsorship or redistribution of a grant to individuals or other organisations,
- activities where people are excluded on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, gender or ethnicity (unless the issue is group-specific).
For more information, visit The London Community Foundation.