Deadline: 8-Dec-23
The Leeds Community Foundation is offering grants to support projects that benefit people facing complex mental health issues based across the whole metropolitan district.
The Leeds Community Foundation is working with forum central, and the NHS integrated care board in leeds to further test the impact of grant funding to community organisations to support the transformation of services for people with complex mental health needs.
Funding Information
- Grant size: £30,000 to £50,000
- Duration: 1 year
Activity that can be funded
- Activity which:
- Provides support to people with complex mental health needs to live fulfilling lives.
- That support can include tackling the wider determinants of health (housing, social connections, physical health, money, etc.).
- Facilitating co-produced, creative spaces, providing different modes for self-expression and self-exploration, this can be in person or digitally.
- Strengthening existing work in communities which supports the work to transform services.
- Forging strong links between people with lived experience, third sector services and the new hubs
- Applicants must show that the activities proposed are supported by people with mental health conditions as being helpful in fulfilling the aims above. The fund is also open to applicants’ suggestions of the sort of work which may be useful for different groups.
- Examples might include social groups, such as hobbies/interest groups, family orientated support, volunteering, and activities that improve physical activity and physical health.
- Activities can include alongside direct support with mental health, support to overcome barriers to good mental health such as housing, debt, and employment.
Who can your activity support?
- Current service users with complex mental health needs in primary, secondary, or tertiary mental health care, who can be effectively supported by third sector activity.
- People with complex mental health needs, who may never have accessed services, due to barriers including the narrow thresholds and criteria, or barriers around accessibility (including the cultural competency of services).
- Individuals who have completed treatment but would benefit from ongoing support to maintain good mental health. This includes people with conditions including but not limited to eating disorders, psychosis, bipolar and ‘personality disorders’. (In Leeds they are moving away from the term ‘personality disorder’ and they acknowledge it’s stigmatising for many.)
You Should Consider
- Projects must demonstrate good value for money. Higher costs are acceptable, for example, where applicants demonstrate it helps them be more effective in reaching all parts of the community including groups overrepresented for mental health conditions but underrepresented in services.
- How you will evidence learning and demonstrate and evaluate outcomes from the project; applicants should consider including costs for external evaluation, participation in programme wide events, or additional internal capacity to ensure they can effectively report on this
- How you envisage a successful project could be sustained after this funding ends
- Full Cost Recovery, including a relevant portion of management costs and overhead
- Paying at least the real Living Wage for any staff
- How your costs may increase during the timeframe of the grant, for example making sure you budget for pay increases during the year of the grant.
- How to ensure the activity is fully inclusive and accessible for your communities, particularly during the cost-of-living crisis (for example providing transport, food, childcare)
- Any relevant insurance (for example for public events), health and safety, food handling and preparation, and other local and national statutory regulations for your activity
Location: Leeds
Eligibility Criteria
- Not-for-profit incorporated Community Organisations from the third sector such as CIO, CIC limited by guarantee, or a charitable company. You will be registered with the Charity Commission, Companies House or Mutual Public Register (FCA).
- Charities that are registered with the Charity Commission but are not an incorporated structure. These organisations cannot use grant funds towards PAYE staff costs, but funds can be used towards freelance staff costs.
- Grants of £5,000 or less
- Small unincorporated and unregistered Community Organisations can only apply if your annual income is less than £10,000, and if securing the grant would not take you above this threshold for current financial year.
- Given the minimum size of the grant, small unincorporated or unregistered community groups cannot be funded. For-profit organisations, statutory organisations or activity (e.g. schools and hospitals) and overseas organisations cannot be funded.
- All organisations, regardless of size and structure, must have:
- At least three Trustees/Directors/Committee Members (whichever is applicable, depending on your organisation’s legal structure) who are independent and unrelated. For registered charitable companies (limited companies by guarantee without share capital, CICs and similar) they require a minimum of three unrelated directors, and none should be registered as Persons with Significant Control
- A governing document e.g. constitution or memorandum and articles of association that shows how your group is managed and includes a dissolution clause/asset lock
- A bank or building society account in the name of your organisation with a minimum of two unrelated authorised signatories on the mandate and transactions requiring authorisation by at least two of those authorised signatories.
- Accounts or a record of income and expenditure for your organisation (if you are a new organisation, you will need to provide a bank statement and a project budget)
- A relevant safeguarding policy, if your organisation works with children or vulnerable adults
Ineligible
- Activity and costs that have already taken place.
- Activity which might be regarded as discriminatory and/or excludes some people without good justification.
- Activity that promotes a particular political or religious point of view.
- Activity primarily for the benefit of animals.
- Capital appeals for building projects.
- Grant-making to other organisations and/or individuals, or applications from individuals.
- Statutory organisations or activity.
- Overseas organisations, expeditions, or overseas travel.
Key Information
- They are seeking to fund at least one citywide project which supports each of the following groups. These needs for support have been recognised by the analysis of local needs.
- A project to support the mental wellbeing of Black Men.
- A project to support the mental wellbeing of older people.
- A project to support the mental wellbeing of young people transitioning into adult services (17- 25).
- A project to provide community support, or provide an accessible bridge to the hubs, for people with access needs.
- A project to support mental wellbeing of people with complex mental health needs who are disproportionately impacted by the cost-of-living crisis.
For more information, visit Leeds Community Foundation.
