Violence Against Women and Girls Cost of Living Fund – UK

Deadline: 4-Apr-23

The London Community Foundation is seeking applications for the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Cost of Living Fund.

The £1 million VAWG Cost of Living Fund, which they are managing on behalf of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), will provide grants to community-based organisations tackling violence against women and girls in London to help them respond to this growing need.

Priorities

• They will fund organisations with a total annual income of up to £500,000 in the previous year.
• They will first prioritise applications from specialist led by and for VAWG services working in the community to support women and girls who are likely to be disproportionately impacted by the cost of living crisis as a result of systemic inequality.
• Priority will be given to specialist led by and for VAWG services supporting the following groups of people as their primary beneficiaries:
  • Black women and girls and women and girls from minority ethnic backgrounds
  • Women and girls with disabilities
  • Neuro-diverse women and girls
  • LGBT+
  • Young women and girls
  • Older women
  • Women with no recourse to public funds (NRPF)
• Some preference will also be given to organisations whose work addresses the intersectionality of more than one of these priority groups.

Funding Information

• Applicants can apply for a grant of between £10,000 to a maximum of £30,000 to be spent within 6 months of grant award date: the short timeline reflects the fact that this is emergency response funding.

What can the fund support?

• Themes
  • Organisations must be responding to the immediate impacts of the cost-of-living crisis on the women and girls affected by VAWG that you currently support, and those you will come to support during the course of the grant period. For example, supporting:
    • food security
    • essential items for women and girls, and/or their children
    • emergency hardship grants
    • supporting access to services (for example funding travel to attend appointments, access to technology such as smart phones or a computer)
    • access to:
      • legal advice
      • financial advice
      • welfare advice
      • housing advice
      • counselling and therapeutic support
  • As well as funding your direct support to women and girls, part of the grant can be used to support your organisation. This means some funding for core organisational costs, including but not limited to:
    • salaries
    • rent and bills
    • additional staffing capacity to respond to the crisis
  • Please note that the core aims of this fund is to address the immediate needs of women and girls affect by VAWG, therefore they cannot fund applications for core organisational costs only. Core costs will be considered up to a maximum of 50% of the total application amount.

Location

• Applications are welcome from organisations based in any London borough, whose services support victims-survivors of VAWG

Eligibility Criteria

• Confirmation that your organisation is not receiving funding for the same costs from elsewhere.
• They will fund organisations with a total annual income of up to £500,000 in the previous year.
• Organisations with an income of over £500,000, who operate as partnership leads and manage funds on behalf of partnership/s, should declare this as part of their application. Applications of this nature will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and exceptions on the upper income limit may be made for organisations operating primarily as lead partners.
• This fund will not give grants directly to individuals; however, they can fund organisations planning to provide cash grants or vouchers to individuals of up to £500 per individual. You will be asked as part of your application to demonstrate that you have a robust process for managing this.
• Eligible 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
  • 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 London Community Foundation.