The Weavers’ Company Charitable Grants are available to small voluntary organisations with an annual income of no more than £250,000. Preference is given to pump priming new projects, especially those which are innovative and can serve as a model elsewhere.
What projects are supported?
The grants fund projects that work with young offenders and ex-offenders in custody and the community, and young people living in disadvantage.
In custodial settings, projects that boost prisoners’ self-esteem have been supported, including using music, embroidery, counselling, letter writing, and the staffing of a restaurant to teach practical skills and to improve job prospects on release.
Projects that help the rehabilitation of ex-offenders include employment in horticulture, driving lessons in return for voluntary work, and training to run crime diversion schemes for teenagers.
Support for disadvantaged young people has included mentoring, anti-gang and drug abuse programmes, summer clubs in deprived areas, art and theatre workshops, and raising awareness of the problems of teenage pregnancy.
Young people are defined as those aged between five and 30.
How much and for how long?
The company will consider funding up to £15,000 per annum. To ensure grants of this size have an impact, it will not normally fund large organisations.
While the company says income is not a barrier to an application being considered, it prefers to support small organisations. Local organisations such as those working in a village, estate or small town should normally have an income of less than about £100,000. For those working in larger cities or across the UK, annual income should not be more than £250,000.
Grants are normally awarded for one year only, although the company will occasionally consider applications for multi-year funding, up to three years.
It advises that applicants should show that they have investigated other sources of funding and made plans for the future, which should include replacement funding if appropriate.
What is and isn’t funded?
There are a number of factors that prospective bidders should consider when applying for funding. The company:
- Prefers to support projects that will use the grant for an identified purpose
- Wants bidders to include overhead costs in their bid
- Will consider funding core costs associated with delivering the project
- May provide emergency or deficit funding for an established organisation
- Will not support sponsorship, marketing or other fundraising activities
- Will not provide grants for work that should be covered by statutory funding
- Will not fund building work, but may help with the cost of equipment or furnishings
- Will not provide grants to grant-giving charities nor umbrella bodies
- Will not support organisations working outside the UK, nor overseas expeditions or travel.
How and when to apply
To apply for funding, applicants should download and complete an online application form and print and post it to the Weavers’ Company together with supporting documents. Details of how to do this are included in the application guidance.
The closing date for the next round of applications is 31 March. Other deadlines for 2020 include 31 July and 30 November. Receipt of applications will be acknowledged by email provided it is received at least 10 days prior to the closing date. Applicants will be informed if any further information is required for the initial assessment.
Applicants will be informed within two weeks of a closing deadline whether or not their application has been shortlisted for further consideration.
Projects which fulfil the funding criteria are shortlisted, and visited by a member of the Weavers’ Company, who will make a recommendation to the charitable grants committee. This meets in February, June and October each year and all shortlisted applicants will be advised in writing of the committee’s decision within two weeks of the meeting.
- More from: http://weavers.org.uk/charitable-grants
Funding roundup
- Comics Youth, Groundwork UK, Greater Manchester Youth Network and Young Lives Consortium are some of the organisations across England to be awarded grants totalling £300,000 from the Co-op Foundation’s #iwill Fund, designed to empower young people to improve spaces, wellbeing and skills. Funding is aligned to Co-op’s community plan, Co-operate 2022.
- Youth mutual Space* Youth Services has been recommissioned by Devon County Council to deliver youth provision for up to five years. Space* Youth Services was first appointed by the council in April 2017. Under the terms of the new contract, the arrangement will run for an initial three years up to April 2023, but could be extended for a further two years. The total value of the contract if extended is in excess of £10m.
- The government has announced plans to raise the amount available through the Adoption Support Fund from £40m this year to £45m in 2020/21. A further £1m will be provided for regional adoption agencies, working with voluntary organisations, to run recruitment campaigns aimed at finding adoptive families for BAME children, for groups including siblings and older children.
- UK Youth has won funding from the Spirit of 2012 and the #iwill Fund to extend its social action programme EmpowHER. The new funding of £600,000 is in addition to an initial £1.8m grant. The extension will allow UK Youth and programme partners, the British Red Cross and Young Woman’s Trust, to expand the programme in the East of England, enabling it to reach more than 2,000 young woman and girls.
