Big Lottery Fund

The Heroes return 2 scheme is providing Lottery funding to help World War II veterans that saw active service and are resident in the UK or the Republic of Ireland to take part in commemorative visits (within the UK and overseas) to mark the anniversary of events that led to the end of  WWII.

War widows and widowers of veterans are also eligible for funding and carers and spouses can receive funding to travel with veterans.

Forces in Mind will focus on addressing a range of problems that veterans can experience when returning to civilian life, such as mental health problems, social exclusion, family breakdown, alcohol problems, suicide and crime.

We want to provide long-term help that supports and joins up with the valuable work already being carried out by a range of organisations. We think the best way to do this is to set up a new independent UK –wide Trusts and give it £35 million to invest and spend over the next 20 years. A partnership of forces charities and mental health organisations, led by the Confederation of British Service and Ex-service Organisations (COBSEO) has now been given the go ahead to form the Trust.

We believe a partnership approach is the best way to meet our programme outcomes and ensure that veterans and their families get the advice and support they need.

The International Communities programme, which will run from 2010-2015, is BIG Lottery Fund’s way of helping disadvantaged communities overseas. It will fund UK based NGOs and charities working overseas.

It will be an open programme which builds on the success of BIG’s previous International Communities programme. We support work that tackles the causes of poverty and deprivation and brings about long-term difference to the lives of some of the most disadvantaged people in the world.

We will fund projects in all parts of the developing world which will improve education, health, allocation of natural resources, human rights, and/or livelihoods.

Grants of between £50,000 and £500,000 will be available.

Grants available: £10 million in total
Who can apply: Only UK-registered charities and charitable organisations in Northern Ireland which are recognised by HMRC as exempt for tax are eligible to apply to Millennium Now.
Eligible organisations must also demonstrate that they have completed a similar £1 million (or greater) project within the last two years or show significant expertise and experience in similar projects and clearly evidence their ability to upscale.
Millennium Now is unlike anything we have delivered before. Developed together with Channel 4, public involvement is at the forefront of this new programme.

Through the Big Decision, the public told us where they felt £10 million of Lottery funding should go. We took this feedback and combined it with the results of an Ipsos MORI poll, conducted with 2000 people from across the nation, to help decide the five distinct project types that Millennium Now will fund. The programme will make five grants, one under each project type, of between £1,500,000 and £2,000,000 for projects running over two years.

Millennium Now will only be able to fund a limited number of projects and we expect to receive a high demand for funding. We are asking you to complete a registration process to see if your organisation and project are eligible to apply:

Application deadline: 1 November 2011 - 13 December 2011

Funding the first Social Impact Bonds in the UK.

With the Ministry of Justice, BIG will be supporting a SIB delivered at HMP Peterborough by the St. Giles Trust. This new landmark scheme has been awarded £6.25 million to help offenders avoid returning to a life of crime when they leave prison. In addition, BIG has awarded £5 million for the development of 3 further SIB pilots.

Grants made: £11.25 million

This is a grant to the Third Sector Research Centre to collaborate with the British Library in establishing a permanent collection of published material on and for the voluntary and community sector, called ‘The Knowledge Portal’.

Grants made: £20,000

This flagship programme continues to make community awards for between £10,000 and £500,000 and will continue to fund for up to five years.

Improvements to enhance your experience of applying have been:

• a more proportionate approach for groups applying for an average of £40K/annum – for these applicants there will be a simpler application process and quicker decision making than if you are asking for more than £40K per year. In particular this should benefit smaller organisations.
  
• more support for applicants at every stage of the application process, particularly in those areas and for those groups that have received less funding than we would have expected.
  
• Supported networking and learning opportunities for those we fund to learn from each other and encourage them to share good practice.
  
• a buildings strand to launch later this year. More information on this will be made available as the programme development continues.
  
• A buildings strand that will replace or improve buildings where a wide range of community activities take place. We want to fund buildings that are well used by their community and have an impact long after the building work is completed.

Awards for All is a rolling grants programme set up to help small local groups and communities. The programme aims to make a difference to communities and the lives of those most in need and will focus on social and environmental projects that benefit local communities.

The easy-to-use application form can be downloaded, filled in and emailed direct to the Big Lottery Fund, as well as being available in hard copy. The application form is short and simple and you will find out if you are successful within six weeks.

Communities Living Sustainably

The Communities Living Sustainably programme is the first of our strategic investments under our Sustainable and Resilient Communities Strategy. The funding will support a range of different communities including vulnerable groups as well as geographically diverse communities to adopt integrated approaches to tackling the impacts of a changing climate that focus on social, economic and environmental challenges.

The lead organisation must be a registered charity. Partnerships must include each section of the community – its residents, businesses, voluntary and community sector and public sector.

The programme has up to £10 million available. Projects can apply for up to £10,000 to develop a project delivery plan. Grants are available of between £500,000 and £1million for up to five years. This is mainly a revenue programme and we will only fund up to £60,000 capital costs.

We will fund up to 30 projects at development stage and up to 10 projects at full application stage.

Advice Services Fund

The Government has made up to £16.8 million for a programme called the Advice Services Fund to support organisations in the free advice sector that have been affected by reductions in public spending. The programme aims to enable not-for-profit advice organisations to continue providing free services to people in their communities in England.

Grants of £40,000 - £70,000 are available and, to ensure this funding has the greatest impact, priority will be given to organisations that have experienced high levels of cuts and those that haven’t received funding through the Transition Fund.

Energy Efficient Venues will pay for community organisations to carry out works to their venue to make them more environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient.

As well as benefiting the environment, this programme will help community organisations save on their heating and lighting costs.

The outcome of the Energy Efficient Venues programme is: Organisations have been supported to create energy efficient community venues across Northern Ireland.

Organisations can apply for two grant sizes through the programme. Grants of £2,000 - £10,000 and grants of £15,000 - £50,000 are available for groups to carry out improvements such as double glazing, upgrading insulation, or installing a more efficient heating system.

If the venue is already energy efficient, a grant could give organisations the opportunity to install solar panels, wind turbines, or biomass technologies such as wood pellet boilers.

The maximum amount of funding available is £60,000.

The closing date for applications is 12pm on Friday 1 June 2012.

Make sure you have enough time to prepare your application.

You can choose to make one grant application (for either a small grant or a large grant). If you are applying for a £15,000 - £50,000 grant you will need to have carried out an energy audit and obtained any necessary statutory permissions before sending us your application.

If you want to make two applications (for a small grant followed by a large grant, or two small grants) you will need think about whether you have enough time to do this. To apply for a second grant, you must have successfully completed the work on your small grant, submitted your End of grant report and received confirmation that your small grant has been closed.

You should be aware that we anticipate that the grant programme may be oversubscribed and therefore an application is not guaranteed to be successful.

We want to identify an award partner to deliver our Space and Place programme.

The award partner will be responsible for delivering the entire grant-making process on behalf of the Big Lottery Fund. A grant scheme is an externally delegated grants programme where the award partner is responsible for the grant- making process.

What will Space and Place do?

Space and Place will provide an opportunity for local communities to come together to identify a shared vision for their area and work to achieve it.

The outcome of the Space and Place programme is:

• more people and communities are connected by making use of underused or difficult spaces.

Programme Budget

There is £15 million available for the successful award partner to run this capital programme.

The successful award partner will run a grant scheme that makes grants to organisations across Northern Ireland, to enable them to access and make better use of internal and external spaces and places.

The Space and Place programme closed to award partner applications on Friday 29 July 2011. We are currently in the process of assessing these applications to identify an award partner to deliver the programme. For any updates following the appointment of the successful award partner please refer to the Space and Place programme page or sign up to receive Big Lottery Fund's Northern Ireland e-bulletin

Through the Awards for All programme in Northern Ireland, small grants of between £500 - £10,000 can be awarded for health, education, environment and community projects.

• Only one grant can be applied for or held at any one time.
• You can apply for more than one award within a 12 month period as long as your original award has been closed by us.
• The maximum amount that can be awarded over a 12 month period is £20,000.
• This is an ongoing programme, with no closing dates.

We have refined and re-engineered Investing in Communities, which was relaunched on the 30th June 2010. Investing in Communities is our main funding programme in Scotland.

It will invest in projects that help people, families and communities most in need. Investing in Communities has three main funding strands: Life Transitions, Supporting 21st Century Life and Growing Community Assets.

Investing in Ideas is an easy-to-access scheme to enable groups to think about, develop and test new ideas for projects or improved ways of working that will bring real improvement to communities, and the lives of people most in need.

The purpose of Investing in Ideas is to fund groups and organisations of all sizes to improve their skills and knowledge to think differently about how a service is delivered and/or help them to design and test new projects or better ways of working.

The JESSICA (Scotland) Trust will be a new £15 million independent trust in Scotland to support disadvantaged urban communities which have been most affected by serious economic decline, market failure and disadvantage.

This Trust will link to a programme from the Scottish Government and European Investment Bank for regeneration in Scotland’s most disadvantaged communities. We believe that by working alongside the European JESSICA fund we can find complementary projects with a strong social economy focus that can be part of an integrated investment approach in these areas.

The BIG Lottery Fund Scotland have announced our intention to make a new £50 million Lottery investment in Scotland aimed at transforming the life chances of young people leaving care and fundamentally improving the lives of older people with dementia and their carers.

Community Spaces Scotland

Community Spaces Scotland is a £9 million fund that will bring communities together around a space or place that matters to them, helping those spaces and places to be better used, and the people in their communities to become healthier, happier and more active. A community space can be both indoor and outdoor spaces including allotments, play areas and community gardens as well as village halls and community centres

We expect the average grant size to be around £100,000, but will accept applications for grants between £10,000 and £250,000. We can award up to two years funding.

This investment is targeted at those areas in Scotland where we believe it can make the biggest positive difference. In deciding on these targeted areas we have included a fair mix of large urban areas, small towns and remote rural areas. Groups can enter the postcode of their project base into the eligibility checker on our website at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/communityspaces which will tell them if they are in an eligible area straightaway.

This programme will be delivered across two funding rounds. Round one will open on 14 June 2011 to both fast track and stage one applications. We will stop accepting fast track applications in October 2011 and stage one applications in December. Round two of the programme will open June 2012 and we will stop accepting stage one applications December 2012.

Awards for All Scotland is supported by Creative Scotland, Sportscotland and the Big Lottery Fund. We award grants of between £500 and £10,000 for people to take part in art, sport, heritage and community activities and projects that promote education, the environment and health in the local community. We can fund a wide range of activities through the programme and want to support projects that meet our outcomes.

The outcomes for Awards for All are:

1. People have better chances in life.
2. Communities are safer, stronger and more able to work together to tackle inequalities.
3. People have better and more sustainable services and environments.
4. People and communities are healthier.

If your project could help us achieve one or more of these outcomes Awards for All could be the right scheme for you. The easy-to-use application form can be downloaded, filled in and emailed direct to the Big Lottery Fund, as well as being available in hard copy. The application form is short and simple. You will find out if you are successful within six weeks.

The programme supports projects that encourage co-ordinated action by people who want to make their communities better places to live. We will support local and regional projects throughout Wales that focus on:

• revitalising communities
• improving community relationships
• enhancing local environments, community services and buildings

The programme will fund between £200,000 and £1 million for projects running between three and five years that seek to achieve the following outcomes:

• Young parents and/or young disabled people are less isolated and have increased wellbeing through improved social networks and stronger relationships
• Better services are delivered which are joined up and are tailored to meet the individual needs of young parents and/or young disabled people
• Young parents and/or young disabled people have increased confidence and skills to successfully manage transitions and lead full and active lives
• Learning from the programme is used to inform future policy, practice and services for young people in transition.

Awards for All Wales is a simple small grants scheme making awards of between £500 and £5,000.

The Awards for All programme aims to help improve local communities and the lives of people most in need.

Awards for All Wales aims to fund projects that:

• Support community activity
• Extend access and participation
• Increase skill and creativity
• Improve the quality of life

Under our Community Voice programme we are making £12 million available to support citizens to have a greater influence over policies and decisions affecting their community.

The aim of the programme is:

To build the capacity of citizens to engage in planning and running services and projects that respond to their communities’ needs and advance community benefit.

Programme outcomes

We want our funding to make a difference. All projects applying to the Community Voice programme will need to meet at least  two of the following short term outcomes:

• a greater number of citizens are able to influence policy and decisions about services in their community.
• communities and service providers work together to design and deliver improved services.
• communities have an increased capacity to conceive and deliver better services and projects

And both of the following long term outcomes before the end of the project:

• improved engagement and participation in the community.
• citizen’s report improved delivery of services, which meet their needs more effectively.