Stanley Community Fund in the UK

Deadline: 18-Sep-22

The County Durham Community Foundation is seeking applications for the Stanley Community Fund to support charities, voluntary-led organisations and projects that have an impact in their community, enabling them to continue their work and make vital improvements to their service.

Themes

The Fund will support broad range of projects based around the following themes:

• Regeneration
  • Regeneration will be considered in its widest sense to include the social regeneration of communities i.e. the Fund will support requests from groups that deliver work schemes, skills development, access to employment, community-led activities, actions to improve the health, wealth and wellbeing of Stanley residents.
• Environmental
  • To improve local surroundings, biodiversity and habitat conservation, and to include the reuse and/or redevelopment of (non-statutory) areas for community use and benefit, where obligations for planning and landowner permissions have been previously met.
• Children and Young People
  • To improve the opportunities for children and young people, which may include but not be limited to the provision of diversionary activities, improving health and wellbeing, educational and aspirational activities and encouraging youth social action.
• Community facilities
  • To develop and maintain community facilities. All capital projects must have a tangible, lasting benefit; improvements to community buildings, sports clubs, grounds and playgrounds (including MUGA), and facilities must have clear community support and inclusion. Any and all projects must be legally deliverable and sustainable, i.e. issues concerning land ownership and planning consent must be resolved prior to an application being submitted. There must also be a viable plan in place for maintenance, insurances, routine inspections etc. for three (3) years after delivery.
  • The Fund will consider core and capital costs for eligible organisations as well as multi-year awards where it can be shown that there is a clear strategic benefit.
• Restructuring
  • To restructure, review or to build resilience following the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. This includes:
    • Providing capital resources and upgrades to assist organisations meet COVID-19 health & safety guidance and having the right resources to meet new operational guidelines
    • Digital support such as training and or capital resources to adapt services to online and phone support
    • Practical support such as food distribution and dropping off medication and shopping
    • Tailored support for at-risk groups such as those experiencing homelessness or domestic abuse
    • Increased community support to vulnerable people
    • Developing the capacity to reengage with beneficiaries or new audiences in new ways
    • Capital resources or upgrades that encourage service users to use venues and facilities e.g. sliding doors, extra signage etc.

Funding Information

Grants up to £10,000 will be available to community and voluntary organisations for non-statutory purposes only.

What type of funding can you apply for?

• Examples of the types of projects and activities the Foundation (the Foundation or ‘they’) will support are listed below but they will consider funding any activities that have clear community benefits:
  • capital items, equipment (except vehicles or minibuses) for use in projects
  • coaching or training activity
  • project costs
  • sessional and/or contributions to salary
  • a contribution to core costs where the expenditure of the organisation is less than £100,000 per year
  • capacity building activities
  • transport costs
  • repair costs
• For any single items or works between £250 and £1,000 they would accept one quote or estimate of works. For single items or works between £1,001 and £50,000 three quotes should be obtained.

Eligibility Criteria

Typically, the Foundation award grants to:

• Constituted voluntary-led organisations with charitable aims
• Registered charities
• Charitable incorporated organisations (CIO)
• Social enterprises
• Community interest companies (CIC)
• Companies limited by guarantee that have charitable aims

Ineligible

The Foundation is unable to accept application from groups that:

• have not returned monitoring forms for previous grants
• are subject to an investigation by the Charity Commission, the police or any other organization in a legal capacity
• are connected to the donor unless a full and independent assessment has taken place to ensure that there is no conflict of interest and the proposed grant offers value for money
• have restricted membership other than that associated with the objects of the group itself i.e. necessary for the safety/wellbeing of disadvantaged users
• fail due diligence or do not comply with Charity Commission guidelines i.e. they would not make grants to organisations that had related bank signatories, several related trustees, income well in excess of the threshold for charitable registration etc.

For more information, visit County Durham Community Foundation.

For more information, visit https://www.cdcf.org.uk/apply-for-a-grant/grants-for-groups/the-stanley-community-fund/