Guidance to help fill out the application form
Try to keep your answers reasonably short but do not leave out important points.
Q1 - Organisation details
Provide contact details for your organisation. These details should be the same as those detailed on your constitution, bank statement and annual accounts and will be used by us should you be successful with your application.
If you are an unconstituted group, state this under 'Organisation structure' and write the name and contact details of the umbrella organisation which has agreed to act as banker for the project.
Q2 - Organisation finances
Provide figures from your signed end of year accounts including any ring-fenced funding or committed spend you may have. If your group has more savings than the income your group receives in a year, you should explain what you are planning to do with this money. If you have not set aside this money for anything specific, funding is unlikely to be awarded.
Q3 - Project expenditure
The first set of boxes is intended to show how the figure requested from the Neighbourhood Support Fund will be spent. Do not include here any expenditure which will be met by funding from other sources. Any small individual items can be swept up together in a general entry of 'Other expenses', which must not exceed £300.
The second set of boxes is to show where any required funding in excess of the grant will come from. In those cases where an application to another fund is pending, indicate the date by which a decision is expected.
In the third set of boxes show what grants been received by your organisation from us in the last three years.
Q4 - Theme
Tick the theme/s that best fit your project. The panel will be looking for evidence that you are addressing one or more of the seven themes.
- reducing loneliness and isolation
- promoting access to better health and wellbeing
- supporting communities to feel safer
- improving connectivity through transport, relationships or digital connection
- addressing climate change or protecting the environment
- improving public spaces
- giving people additional skills
Q5 - About your project
Tell us about your project and the impact that you hope to have.
Use these as a guide:
- indicate which one or more of the seven themes your project will address
- give a summary description of your project
- describe the impact your project will make within the community and quantify the benefits you believe will be gained, giving an estimate of both the number of people benefiting and the scale of that benefit
- demonstrate how you will measure how well your project meets your proposed outcomes/impacts and how you will monitor progress
- state what specific skills and expertise you have to deliver the project, and how the project will be organised and managed, if your organisation has successfully managed similar projects recently, give brief details
Q6 - Please tell us how you identified the need for your project?
Provide evidence that your proposal has sufficient community support
Explain what need/demand has been evidenced for your project.
Q7 - How will you deliver your project?
Provide information on:
- who will deliver your project, what members of staff will be involved in the project delivery (if any)
- where your project will be delivered from
- the timescale of the project
Q8 - What will happen to your project once the funding ends?
Indicate what lasting impacts (if any) your project will have for the community after it has been successfully implemented. If the project is to be continued in some form or other, state how you think this continuation might be achieved and financed.
Q9 - How will you measure the success of your project?
Provide information on how you aim to evaluate your project ongoing and on completion. Think about:
- What things will be happening as a result of the work you have done?
- What have the people who received the service or support said about the service or support they received?
- How will you gather this evidence?
Accompanying Documents
Copies of the following documents should accompany your application. Where the document is lengthy it is sufficient to provide the link to it on a website. If any required document is missing, your application will be delayed.
- your group’s formal Constitution and Rules
- your group’s latest bank statement
- your group’s latest annual accounts, signed to show they have been independently checked, new groups should provide instead an estimate of 12 months’ income and expenditure
Constitutions, rules, bank statements and annual accounts must all be in the same name as the name of the applicant group/organisation given on page one of the application.
If your group does not have a constitution, rules, bank statement and annual accounts you should send us information about the umbrella group which will act as banker, and will manage the grant on your behalf. This group should supply a letter of support for your project, for you to include among your documents, together with a copy of its own authorisation minute, constitution, rules, bank statements and accounts.
- any evidence which supports the need for the project
- quotations or estimates from suppliers to support the costs quoted on the application form, for any items which will cost £1k or more, at least two firm quotations are needed
- a statement of your organisation’s current finances and the financial needs of the project, explaining how you are planning to use any finances you have available and why they cannot be used for this project. Include details of any efforts you have made or are making to secure other sources of funding (including partial funding) and what success you have achieved. You must have made or be making such efforts if your application is for a grant exceeding £5k
- a statement of how you have made use of previous grants and funding in the last three years from us. If you have completed a project supported by a grant from the Community Fund in the last three years, supply a copy of the evaluation form you submitted afterwards
- relevant permissions from landowners etc if your project involves any form of construction, supply a statement signed on behalf of your organisation that it has heritable ownership of the land or building, or holds a lease that cannot be brought to an end by the landlord for at least five years
- a statement of your group’s Equal Opportunities policy
- a statement of whether the project could go ahead on a reduced scale (to be specified) if only part of the grant applied for is awarded, and whether the project could still go ahead if the application is deferred until the following Area Partnership meeting.