Funding Update

Funding with upcoming deadlines – July/August/September

Year of Stories 2022 Open Events Fund

This fund has been designed to support new, creative event proposals and programming that will provide high profile content created especially in response to the 2022 Themed Year opportunity. Successful proposals must provide strong engagement opportunities that create key moments across the year capable of driving high levels of media coverage, audience awareness and attendance. Proposals must clearly articulate responsible tourism and sustainable development principles, including how the event will manage economic, social, and environmental impacts and maximise positive outcomes.

Grants of between £15,000 – £60,000
Deadline: Thursday 12 August 2021
Events must take place in Scotland in 2022, be public facing and attractive to visitors and locals alike.

Community Event and Activity Support Fund – Climate Fringe COP26

Applications are encouraged from grassroots and community groups in Scotland who wish to create an event/activity for Climate Fringe Week 18-26 September. The aim of this small fund is to get more people involved, across wider audiences and to channel the energies and desire for people to connect with the international Climate Talks into local awareness and action. The fund encourages events and engagement in diverse communities (socio-economically, ethnically and geographically).

The deadline is Friday 30 July 2021 at 17:00

Bank of Scotland Foundation – Reach

The Reach programme is suitable for charities can demonstrate they address disadvantage or social exclusion and will reach the most vulnerable people across Scotland, to provide them with opportunity and equality and making positive, sustainable change. For disadvantage, examples include charities addressing primary disadvantage such as homelessness, abuse, mental health or poverty, or secondary disadvantage such as debt issues, learning disabilities, illiteracy, lack of employability skills or health issues. For social exclusion, examples include charities addressing exclusionary challenges for minorities, people with disabilities, LGBT people, drug users, institutional care leavers, the elderly or the young.

Upcoming rounds are: Opening at 12 noon on 26 July 2021 and closing at 12 noon on 29 July 2021 (for decisions mid-September 2021) Opening at 12 noon on 20 September 2021 and closing at 12 noon on 24 Sep 2021 (for decision end of November 2021)

Next deadlines: 29th July 2021 and 24th September 2021

The Awesome Foundation – Glasgow

The Glasgow Chapter of the Awesome Foundation gives small, no-strings-attached mini-grants to cool projects that will make the world, and Glasgow, more Awesome.

-The project must be based locally (Glasgow – with a G postcode).
-You need to have a budget – prove you have a plan for how additional funds will be raised.
-It has to benefit the local community.
-Most of all, it has to be Awesome

Next deadline : Friday 30th July 2021. Apply at any time. Funds are awarded every two months.

The Fore Trust

The Fore Trust offers development funding and strategic support to early-stage charities and social enterprises. It makes unrestricted grants which have the potential to have a transformational impact on an organisation. For example, enabling your organisation to take a step forward in its development or giving you the chance to do something you couldn’t before. It will also match successful applicants with friendly professional support including ongoing mentoring, strategic advice, governance support or other assistance. From Summer 2021, The Fore is returning to its standard offer of grants of up to £30,000, which can be spread over up to 3 years. They make unrestricted grants which have the potential to have a transformational impact on an organisation. This could be in helping organisations become more sustainable, more efficient, to grow significantly or enabling an organisation to take a major step forward of some kind.

The Fore is particularly looking to fund small organisations working with marginalised groups and led by people in the community that may have found it hard to access trust and foundation funding in the past.  Any registered charity, CIC, CIO or Community Benefit Society with turnover of under £500,000 in the last financial year is eligible to apply.

How to apply: Organisations must first register some basic contact details at the start of each funding round – this can be done at the link below when the funding round opens. Registration is run on a first-come, first-served basis. Once the cap is reached, the round is closed, so please register early (Registrations open at 10am). Registration for the Autumn 2021 funding round opens on Monday 26th July at 10am. 

Foundation Scotland – Volant Charitable Trust Open Grants

The Volant Trust’s aim is to support women, children and young people who are at risk and facing social deprivation. It supports Scottish charities and projects, whether national or community-based, which help alleviate social deprivation, particularly supporting women, children and young people at risk. Projects must demonstrate a strong focus on supporting women and children affected by hardship or disadvantage and on tackling the issues they face in order to make a lasting difference to their lives and life chances.

The Trustees meet bi-annually in April and October to make decisions. There is a two-stage application process. The first step is to complete the online enquiry form on the funder website to send an outline of your project. If invited, you will be sent a full application to complete.

To receive a decision by April 2022 all enquiry forms must be submitted between 1st July and 31st October 2021.

Next deadline: 31st Oct 2021

Funds with ongoing open grants programmes – apply any time

Culture and Business Fund – Arts and Business Scotland

The Culture & Business Fund Scotland enables businesses and arts or heritage organisations to come together and build effective, sustainable partnerships, bringing creative projects to life.

The CBFS is primarily perceived as a means of additional support that enable culture organisations to extend engagement activities to benefit the public and address business needs. It can also provide vital funding to support behind the scenes development work to adapt for new ways of working, support and future delivery.

If you are an arts or heritage organisation seeking or securing business support to enhance digital expertise, undertake website development, appoint development staff or enable other work to develop wider connections to reach potential audiences for now and the future, we’d like to hear from you to see if we can help.

We’d also like to hear from you if you are a business that would like to know how the CBFS can help you to support cultural activities that can contribute to creating healthy and inspiring working environments that empower your people to innovate, contribute to your local community, or provide access to potential new market opportunities to unlock your commercial potential.

Young Start Fund – National Lottery Community Fund

Young Start are offering funding from £10,000 to £100,000 to help children and young people across Scotland become more confident, so they can realise their own potential

They will fund work that achieves at least one of the following three outcomes:

– children and young people have better physical, mental and emotional wellbeing
– children and young people have better connections with the wider community
– children and young people get access to new skills and training opportunities which will help them to get a new job or start a business.

They also believe that the following three approaches are vital in making sure that funding makes the biggest difference possible. They want to fund work that is:

– people-led – meaningfully involving the young people you’re working with in the development, design and delivery of your activity
– strengths-based – making the most of, and building on, the skills and experiences of young people and assets within communities
– connected – having a good understanding of what others are doing locally, developing good working relationships and complementing and adding value to other relevant activity in your area.

The National Lottery Community Fund – National Lottery Awards for All

Awards For All supports projects that aim to help improve local communities and the lives of people most in need. Priorities are: bringing communities together, improving places that matter to communities, and enabling people to fulfil their potential. There are no deadlines and applications can be submitted at any time. It will take up to 12 weeks to get a decision. Grants available from £300 – £10,000.

The Rayne Foundation

The Rayne Foundation makes grants to charitable and not-for-profit organisations across the UK tackling a variety of issues. They favour work which could change the way issues are tackled in our society and which could have lessons for others beyond the funded organisation. They consider applications in the fields of arts, health and wellbeing, education in its widest sense, and those that cover social issues. The focus is to connect communities, building bridges between marginalised groups and mainstream society, and to enable individuals to reach their full potential.

In addition, areas of special interest are: Young people’s improved mental health; Arts as a tool to achieve social change; Improved quality of life for carers and for older people.

Deadline: Ongoing. You can apply at any time and can normally expect to receive a decision within 3-4 months, although they recommend allowing six months for a decision.

Garfield Weston Foundation

The Foundation supports a broad range of organisations and activities that share a commitment to making a positive impact to the lives of the communities in which they work, and that are driven by a desire to achieve excellence. The Foundation is only able to support UK registered charities and CIOs (Charitable Incorporated Organisations) working within the UK. There are no deadlines. The Trustees make decisions all year round on grant applications. Regular Grants (those under £100,000) are considered in order of receipt to be fair to all. They also have eight meetings per year to review Major Grant applications.

Merchants House of Glasgow

The fund supports a wide range of projects being undertaken by charities within and around Glasgow. Available only to registered charities.
Applications can be submitted at any time. The grants committee meets in February, April, August and November.

Western Recreation Trust

The Trust awards grants to organisations based in the West of Scotland working to improve recreational facilities for young people, older people and those who are unemployed. Grants are awarded towards the cost of equipment. There are no deadlines and applications can be submitted at any time. To make an enquiry about an application please contact: susie@monteithsolicitors.com

Hugh Fraser Foundation

Makes donations to registered charities working in many different sectors including education and arts organisations. The Trustees meet normally in March, June, September and December. The cut- off-date for applications is normally a month before the meeting date. To make an enquiry about an application please contact: hughfraserfoundation@turcanconnell.com

If you have a specific enquiry relating to funding for your organisation or project please contact Fiona Greer (Funding and Communications Officer) by email- fionagreer2020@gmail.com