Deadline: 30-Oct-20
The Community Chest is the Southampton City Council’s small grant scheme which supports community groups in the city.
The aim of this grant scheme is to support new community groups to start up and give an occasional boost to existing groups.
Funding Information
- Grants of between £100 and £2,500 are available for small, volunteer led community groups.
The application process
This guide has been designed to help you when applying to Community Chest. It will help you decide if your group and project are eligible for funding and there are also notes to help you complete the application form.
The Application process:
- Complete and submit your application by email
- They assess your application
- They tell you our decision (approx. 3 months after the closing date)
- Successful applicants return their signed grant agreement
- Start your project
- Finish your project and complete the monitoring form (one year after the grant is awarded)
They prefer to receive applications and supporting documents electronically. If you are not able to do this please contact us for a paper application pack. It takes approximately 3 months for the grant decision to be made. Please make sure your start date is after the project/activities start date are listed
Eligibility Criteria
- Priority is given to small, unfunded, volunteer-led community groups.
- Social enterprises for start-up or additional projects outside of their core business.
- Religious groups for community activities
- ‘Friends of’ (or similar) groups for their own projects/activities
- PTA or ‘Friends of…’ schools groups or student groups for wider community activities outside school hours
- Groups who have an annual income of less than £250,000.
- Groups who have an annual income of between £50,000 and £250,000 will be treated as a lower priority. This means that your application will be considered last, once all the applications in that round from groups with an annual income of less than £50,000 have been considered.
- Groups who receive funding from the council’s Commissioned Grants Programme will only be considered for a grant in exceptional circumstances.
- Applications are not accepted from schools, further and higher education establishments, regardless of how they are funded (LEA, trusts, privately funded, etc.).
- Applications are not accepted from statutory agencies, such as the police, health, other local authorities or other Southampton City Council departments.
- Applicants must demonstrate that members/attendees make contributions towards the group/project unless there are exceptional circumstances not to do so.
Who can apply?
- Priority is given to small, unfunded, volunteer-led community groups.
- Social enterprises for start-up or additional projects outside of their core business.
- Religious groups for community activities
- ‘Friends of’ (or similar) groups for their own projects/activities*
- PTA or Friends of schools groups or student groups for wider community activities outside school hours
- Groups who have an annual income of less than £250,000
- Groups who have an annual income of between £50,000 and £250,000 will be treated as a lower priority. This means that your application will be considered last, once all the applications in that round from groups with an annual income of less than £50,000 have been considered.
- Groups who receive funding from the council’s Commissioned Grants Programme will only be considered for a grant in exceptional circumstances.
- Applications are not accepted from schools, further and higher education establishments, regardless of how they are funded (LEA, trusts, privately funded, etc.). • Applications are not accepted from statutory agencies, such as the police, health, other local authorities or other Southampton City Council departments. • Applicants must demonstrate that members/attendees make contributions towards the group/project unless there are exceptional circumstances not to do so. o Examples of contributions include, lunch clubs charging £2 per meal, community fun day charging 50p for refreshments, sport taster sessions charging 20p a go or a community group charging an annual membership fee of £1. o Groups may take into account the financial circumstances of their members/attendees. o Making contributions meets the standard grant criteria that groups must not be wholly reliant on Southampton City Council funding. • Groups who received funding from Community Chest in the previous or current financial year will only be considered for a grant in exceptional circumstances.
For more information, visit http://www.southampton.gov.uk/people-places/grants-funding/community-chest.aspx