Grants are an important form of funding that enable many voluntary and community organisations to provide services that make a real difference to people’s lives.  But finding and applying for grants takes time, and many grants come with strings attached that require careful management.  Grant funding is changing too, with increasing levels of competition and some funders preferring to offer contracts or loans.  Increasingly voluntary and community organisations are combining grant funding with other options such as trading, contracting and loan finance.  Here are some suggestions of where you might seek grant funding:

• Grant Making Trusts
• The National Lottery
• Statutory Authorities             

Benefits and Challenges of the Grants Funding Stream

• Restricted income stream
• Grant funding or output/outcome-linked income
• Subsidy of project or organisation
• Requires project planning and monitoring
• Requires transparency and clarity about use of income
• A clear understanding of funder’s criteria essential
• Relationship based on expectations of projects

Thinking About Applying for Grants? What to Consider?

Is your organisation ‘Fit for Funding’? - CVS offers a monthly workshop that covers all the basics to get you to the stage where your organisation will be able to apply for funding.  You will be taken through all the documentation you will need to have in place (including governing documents and policies), together with a guide to budgeting and an explanation of the basics of outcomes and demonstrating need.  There is also an opportunity to go through examples of funding applications and guidance on the use of our funding resources area, including a demonstration of our funding databases.  Most importantly this two-hour workshop is  FREE!  Visit our Fit for Funding Web Page for details of upcoming workshops or ring us on 01234 354366.

Can your group demonstrate need for Grant Funding? Does your group have an understanding of Outcomes? - in this follow-up workshop, you can build on the skills you gained from the ‘Fit for Funding’ workshop and learn how to identify and explain need for your work.  Additionally by the end of the workshop you will be able to define your group’s aims, outcomes, targets and milestones.  Using practical examples and an interactive workshop, the aim is to make sense of some of the most common problems groups have when making funding applications.  Again this workshop is FREE!  Visit  our Fit for Funding Web Page for details of upcoming workshops or ring us on 01234 354366.

CVS Funding Resources Library - our Resources Library can be booked by any local voluntary or community group free of charge.  It is available on weekdays between 9am and 5pm and can be accessed   at other times by special arrangement.  Using the Resources Library you can search for funders via our subscription databases (FunderFinder and Trustfunding.org.uk) and then research the resulting funders through the funding directories, books, guides and toolkits we hold in our library.  You can book a session today by calling us on 01234 354366 or by emailing mark@yourcvs.org

Fundraising Toolkit - download our Fundraising Toolkit (that includes comprehensive details of local funders).

Funding Central Website - visit NCVO’s free online database of grant funding opportunities at www.fundingcentral.org.uk