Wesleyan Small Grants Programme (UK)

Deadline: 21-Oct-21

The Leeds Community Foundation has launched its Wesleyan Small Grants Programme that focuses on:

Education – Charities or projects that enhance learning and develop career opportunities.

Health – Promote health and wellbeing.

Social – Provide local solutions to meet local needs, promote community cohesion and develop sustainable and supportive communities.

Focus Areas

Wesleyan would like to support organisations who are delivering the following during these unprecedented times and focus on the following areas:

Mental Health – all age groups
Bereavement
PSE
Domestic Violence (including women’s refuges)
Isolation /befriending /listening
The vulnerable and elderly
Dementia / quality of life
Social prescribing – alleviating the pressure from the NHS
Getting back to work – innovative travel (cycle schemes)/reducing carbon footprint
Employment – reskilling people (not so much those that support with CV writing) but those that actively prepare you for a new job / new career etc interview prep etc
Outdoor projects – making changes so that services can be delivered outside

Funding Information

The maximum request is £2,000 for up to 12 months.
The grant can be used to part-fund or fully-fund a wide range of activities.
Only one application per organisation can be considered.

What can the Fund support?

Grants can be made for a wide range of purposes including consumables, project or activity costs:
Salary, equipment or volunteer costs that are clearly budgeted and only used for the project – evidence will be required.
No more than 10% of the project costs can be assigned to operational/core costs.

Your application value must be no more than 20% of the organisation’s annual income.

Eligibility Criteria

Incorporated community groups such as CIOs, CICs and charitable companies from the third sector that:
- Are registered with the Charity Commission, Companies House or Mutuals Public Register (FCA)
- Have a constitution or other relevant governance document
- Have a management committee/board of directors/trustees of at least three unrelated people, none of whom have significant control
- Have a bank account under the name of the group with at least two unrelated signatories (if your organisation doesn’t have its own bank account, but does meet all of the other criteria, please contact them to discuss how they can work around this)
- A copy of your most recent annual accounts or financial records showing your organisation’s balance of funds, income and reserves
- A bank statement from the last 3 months.
- Are based in or supporting people living in the Leeds Metropolitan District Area
- Have an income of £250,000 or under in the most recent financial year.
- Quotes for capital items over £300
- Groups that have been running for at least 2 years
- Have a Child and young Safeguarding Policy and an Equal Opportunities Policy or similar
- If organising or running public events, festivals etc groups will be expected to have relevant insurance and comply with all required health and safety, food handling/preparation and other local and national statutory regulations for such activity.
Charities that are registered with the Charity Commission but are not an incorporated structure can also apply. However, grants cannot be used to pay staff that are directly employed by the charity.
Small unincorporated and unregistered community groups can apply if their annual income is less than £10,000, and if securing the grant does not take them above this threshold for the year.