Year 5 Community Grant Scheme Fund for Organisations and Individuals (UK)

Themes

• At the heart of your project there must be a core commitment to one or more of the following:
  • Employment opportunities
    • Will your project provide employment opportunities for local people, including access to paid work experience / internships, access to apprenticeships or gaining access to jobs?
  • Learning opportunities
    • Will your project provide ladders of opportunity through learning and training opportunities for local people, including accessing lifelong learning opportunities from early learning, schools through to late career and post-retirement and/or will the project offer bespoke career and higher education path support, training, and secondments?
  • Young people
    • Will your project have a young person led approach with particular provision for local young people to access broader skills development opportunities, careers workshops and related learning and/or one to one coaching and mentoring?
  • Business and entrepreneur support
    • Will your project provide local people with the opportunity to have business and/or entrepreneur support including freelance, business and entrepreneur set up, development and training?

Funding Information 

• The Foundation will accept EOIs for Year 5 for applications up to £20,000. There is a total pot of up to a maximum of £200,000.
• Value: up to £20,000
• Project Duration: 6-12 month projects. They expect projects to be completed by December 31 2025, at the latest.

Project Activity & Case Studies

• The Fund is about creating inclusive and sustainable opportunity — they are keen to back a range of activities and innovative ideas that drive the proposed outcomes.
• The Foundation for Future London is a strong advocate for the ability of creativity to enable levelling up opportunities and to be a strong contributor to the London economy.
• Therefore, they are keen to fund project activity that has origins in:
  • Arts, Culture, Heritage
  • Skills & Jobs
  • Business & Start Up
  • Community
  • Creative Ideas
  • Digital
  • Collaboration
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Intergenerational
  • Health, Wellbeing & Environment
  • Education
  • Creative, Inclusive Public Realm and/or Placemaking

Outcomes 

• They appreciate these four overarching areas are a broad spectrum, so to aid understanding of outcomes expected through the grants, they have co-designed a user-centered process with their grantees.
• Outcomes are the project’s short, medium or long-term goals that will lead to a meaningful impact for communities across the local boroughs. Applicants will be asked to identify a set number of outcomes their work will achieve. The number of outcomes expected will be based on the amount you are applying for.
• They have provided a list of 13 short, medium and long-term outcomes to be selected. The number of outcomes your project will be expected to meet will be based on how much funding you are applying for. They will also provide a pre-application workshop on how to approach these outcomes (Impact Framework) and, should you be awarded a grant, further training on using the Impact Framework will also be provided.
• Short Term Outcomes
  • Participants gain technical/sector-specific and/or creative skills
  • Participants gain essential skills
  • Participants gain confidence in their potential and self-initiative
  • Participants are better equipped to process difficult emotions
  • Participants are equipped to act as agent of change in their boroughs
  • Organisations and schools are exposed to creative approaches to wellbeing
• Medium/Long Term Outcomes
  • Increased employability of participants
  • Increased capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship
  • More diverse audiences engage with the cultural sector and benefit from community assets/available services
  • Participants act as agents of change within the local community
  • Organisations and schools integrate creative approaches within their projects

Eligibility Criteria 

• Individuals; schools; not for profit organisations with less than £1.5 million turnover (London Boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest and East Bank partners are exempt from turnover limit).
• If you are a school applying, you must evidence that the funding applied for will not be for core school day/curriculum activity
• If you have not applied to the Foundation previously, they recommend that you discuss your project with a member of the team before applying to assess whether you are eligible and what additional info may be relevant to supply.

For more information, visit Foundation for Future London.