Deadline: 30-Aug-23
The London Community Foundation (LCF) is pleased to launch the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) Grassroots Fund.
The MOPAC VAWG Grassroots Fund 2023-25 builds upon the success of the initial £3m fund which was awarded to 41 richly diverse organisations (2021 – 23).
The fund will continue to focus on supporting the resilience of organisations working to end Violence Against Women and Girls in minoritised and marginalised communities. Two-year grants of up to £100,000 will be provided, as well as capacity building, networking opportunities and monitoring support.
Objectives
- The objectives of the VAWG Grassroots Fund are to:
- Support VAWG grassroots organisations to deliver their specialised services, especially those impacted by systemic inequalities;
- Build the capacity of existing VAWG services;
- Sustain effective interventions that are facing challenges in continuing service delivery, including maintaining existing services, whilst supporting the stability of grassroots organisations;
- Increase the victim-survivor accessibility of grassroots organisations best placed to respond to the needs of London’s diverse communities, and women with no recourse to public funds for whom mainstream, generic provision is not always appropriate or safely accessible;
- Fund services that are responsive to communities of protected demographic groups at a grassroots level and can reach survivors across borough boundaries. Particularly in areas where there are gaps in provision and a specialist service may not be commissioned locally due to low density of users;
- Prevent the development of misogyny and harmful attitudes among young people that enables VAWG;
- Sustain services for survivors to allow opportunity for recovery, gain independence and address the multiple issues they may face;
- Share best practice of supporting survivors to experience better outcomes, e.g. monitoring and evaluation models, recognised safeguarding and clinical and recovery frameworks;
- Develop networks of experts in services tackling VAWG to build overall sector capacity;
- Support the Voluntary and Community Sector to undertake robust performance monitoring and evaluation methods to demonstrate what difference the funding has made as well as impact;
- Highlight the value of specialist VAWG organisations by using collective insights to demonstrate their expertise, impact and need.
Fund Priorities
- The Fund will prioritise organisations which:
- Are run by and for the communities they serve, where the client group is reflected in staffing, management and governance structures. This means at least 80% of trustees and staff are from the protected characteristic the organisation aims to work with;
- Have a track record of meeting the increased/diverse needs of the following minoritised and marginalised service-users;
- Black women and girls and women and girls from minority ethnic backgrounds
- Women and girls with disabilities
- Neuro-diverse women and girls
- LGBTQ+ women
- Young women and girls
- Older women
- women with no recourse to public funds (NRPF)
- women involved in prostitution
- women and girls involved in modern slavery and human trafficking
Funding Information
- £3,000,000 of funds are available over two years (November 2023 – 2025)
- The Fund will provide two-year grants of up to £100,000 (£50,000 per year) for individual organisations. Partnerships of up to three organisations can apply for two-year grants of up to £120,000 (£60,000 per year)
- They expect between 35-45 grants to be awarded
- There is no income threshold for the Fund however organisations with an annual income of less than £500,000 will be prioritized.
What can the fund support?
- Organisations interested in applying will need to ensure that they meet The London Community Foundation’s core eligibility criteria. It is worthwhile checking this before starting an application. For example, organisations with overdue monitoring with The London Community Foundation will not be eligible.
- Eligible organisations are advised to read the Fund Prospectus which outlines the background, objectives and commitment requirements of the MOPAC VAWG Grassroots Fund Programme. The Prospectus is available to download (click on the button below or on the top right hand side of the screen).
- The Fund will prioritise;
- Black Minority Ethnic organisations focusing on ending VAWG
- Women’s community organisations where delivery services aimed at ending VAWG is the main focus
- Specialist community organisations (e.g. disability rights groups, providing services aimed at ending VAWG).
Location
- Women and girls suffer violence regardless of borough boundaries; they live, study, work, socialise and travel across London and can experience violence at home, in educational institutions, workplaces and public spaces. Women and girls may also move across different localities as part of their survival and help-seeking strategies. Their movement can relate to immediate safety issues, such as fleeing a local area as a result of violence; as well as seeking/accessing support appropriate to their individual need.
- Applications will be accepted from any London Borough. Organisations based outside of Greater London may be considered for funding, but only activity within London and for Londoners will be considered and a track record of delivering your services within London must be demonstrated.
Eligibility Criteria
- Only one application per organisation will be accepted, including partnership bids.
- Applicants must:
- Currently be providing services to address VAWG
- Be able to demonstrate a minimum of three complete years of operation
- Be delivering the work they are requesting funding for in London, with a preference for organisations based in London
- There is no income threshold for the Fund however organisations with an annual income of less than £500,000 will be prioritised.
- They will accept applications from organisations with the following legal structures – there must be a signed governing document in place appropriate to the legal structure which includes an asset lock (or equivalent clause), and the purpose of all funded activities must be charitable (not for profit):
- 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 o Unincorporated Association
- Community Benefit Societies (CBS). Ideally, the CBS will also be registered as charitable with HMRC, however this is not essential.
For more information, visit LCF.