UK: Women’s Sector Resilience Fund Phase 2

Deadline: 10-Dec-21

The Smallwood Trust has launched its Women’s Sector Resilience Fund Phase 2 to support local networks of organisations working with and for women to make changes to systems that cause women’s poverty in their area.

Goals

They have £1.5 million available to fund approximately three networks over three years to achieve the programme goals of:

Working with networks of organisations united by geography to reduce gendered poverty in their area
Building capacity within local communities to help the local women’s sector to create sustainable change

Aims

The aims of the programme are to:

Take a ‘test and learn’ approach – they think that local organisations know a lot about what creates change for women and they will learn alongside organisations through the fund
Help networks further understand women’s poverty in their local area, for different groups of women, and support them to define the change they want to see
Stimulate ideas that are designed and delivered by the people closest to the problem, including women with experience of poverty themselves
Help networks build strong relationships with a range of different organisations, individuals and decision makers so that after the programme is over these relationships remain
Support networks to measure the change they are making

Funding Information

They aim to fund approximately three geographical place-based networks. Each network can apply for up to £500k to be spent over three years. This funding will be awarded to a lead organisation who be responsible for distributing the money to the rest of the network. This funding will pay for:
- Core costs for each of the organisations involved (70%) e.g. 350k
- Support to coordinate the network (20%) e.g. 100k
- Any advisory support / organisational development / capacity building that you might need (10%) e.g. 50k
- All budget lines that are applied for should ultimately support the network to achieve the goals and aims of the fund. These percentages are a rough guide and final sums will be decided with you if your application is successful.

Geographic Areas

It is a place-based approach to systems change that is open to networks in and around the following areas:

Birmingham
Bristol
Kingston upon Hull
Liverpool / Merseyside
Manchester
Middlesbrough / Teesside
Newcastle
West Yorkshire (Bradford and Leeds)

Eligibility Criteria

All organisations to be funded must:
- Be a not-for-profit organisation (including registered charities and CICs) that is women only or has a track record in delivering services for women (aged 18+) facing multiple and complex disadvantage
- Have a written governing document e.g. a constitution or set of rules
- Have a governing body with at least three unrelated members
- Have a UK-based bank or building society account in the name of the organisation with at least two unrelated signatories
- Have an appropriate safeguarding policy in place (every organisation that delivers charitable activities has a duty to safeguard volunteers, staff members, users, participants and donors)
In addition, the lead organisation within the network must:
- Have some previous experience of either: subcontracting, coordinating a network, joint working or a combination of these
- Have at least 12 months of draft or signed accounts.