Suffolk Community Foundation: Women & Girls Fund (UK)

Deadline: 31-Jan-23

Applications are now open for Women & Girls Fund to support the work of voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations that are delivering work to support local women and girls in need.

This fund particularly welcomes applications that are towards early intervention, crisis prevention and education for women and girls.

They award grants to charities, voluntary or community groups and organisations which are charitable in purpose and are working to help relieve disadvantage and deprivation across Suffolk. They seek to support genuinely good ideas that will make a real difference to the lives of local people.

Aim

The aim of thier grant-making is to:
- Promote health and wellbeing;
- Tackle disadvantage;
- Support local solutions to meet local needs;
- Promote community cohesion;
- Develop sustainable and supportive communitie;
- The Foundation supports core running costs, new or continuing projects, one-off initiatives, and capital costs. they seek to achieve an equitable distribution of resources across the county.

Grant Information

Grants of up to £1,000 to support the work of voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations that are delivering work to support local women and girls in need.

Outcomes and Monitoring

All funding supported must show three clear measurable outcomes which will have to be reported on at the end of the grant funding. All applicants must be aware that they need to capture baseline data and show a journey of change at the end of delivery. Measurement tools such as WEMWBS, SWEMWBS, outcome stars can be used and data incorporated in all reporting.
If you are unsure how to describe what the outcomes of your project or intervention will be, as a general rule, think of the phrase ‘as a result of …’ and describe what will be qualitatively or quantitively be different as a direct result of your inputs.
A full end-of-grant monitoring report will be expected and interim reporting may be requested on your terms and conditions. This will need to include benchmarking of the beneficiaries at the beginning and end of the service, i.e. how were they referred to the service, what change has happened.

Eligibility Criteria and Evidence

Constitution
- Your organisation should have a constitution/governing document/Articles of Association/set of rules to apply for funding and a management committee with a minimum of three independent members. This document will typically show:-
  - The charitable aims of your organisation;
  - The organisation’s powers;
  - Who can become a member;
  - How the management committee and officers are elected and their terms of office;
  - The roles of the different officers of the group (e.g. Treasurer, Chair, Secretary);
  - How frequently the management committee meets;
  - The arrangements for an Annual General Meeting;
  - How finances are managed;
  - How any amendments can be made to the group’s constitution.
Your constitution must also include a Dissolution Clause i.e. what happens to the group’s assets if it ceases to operate. This clause should state that any assets remaining after the settlement of debts will be transferred to an organisation with similar charitable purposes, and not distributed among members. Articles of Association for CICs must contain a named Asset Lock.
If your organisation is a Community Interest Company (CIC) or a Company Limited by Guarantee/Company Limited by Shares with charitable aims and objectives, there must be:
- At least 3 unrelated officers, living at different addresses, registered with Companies House
- Equal voting rights/shares for all registered officers
- No “Person(s) with Significant Control” over the company registered with Companies House
If your company is Limited by Shares, your Articles of Association must clearly show that dividends (or other profit-sharing schemes) are not paid to shareholders, and that all profits are reinvested in the company.

For more information, visit Suffolk Community Foundation.