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Welcome to our new website. You may still see some pages from our old site as we move things over.

What you can spend the money on

You can apply for funding to cover things like: 

  • staff costs, including sessional workers 
  • costs that help you support communities and smaller partner organisations 
  • anything that supports effective partnership working – like costs for partnership meetings, administration and management 
  • organisational development such as staff training, improving governance, upgrading IT or sharing learning 
  • transport 
  • utilities and running costs 
  • volunteer expenses 
  • learning and evaluation 
  • equipment 
  • translation or interpretation costs, for example to deliver your project in Welsh 
  • contributions to overheads – though these should be proportionate to your project request. Learn more about full cost recovery 
  • some capital costs 

Capital costs

We can fund some capital costs, but we will not fund projects that are only for capital costs. 

For example, we may fund land purchase or leasing, restoring land and land investigations that increase accessibility. We will also cover costs for equipment and tools. 
 
We are unlikely to fund capital costs for buildings and restoration of them, solar panels or electric vehicle (EV) charging points. 

If your project includes capital costs, you should contact us for more guidance. 

Political activity and campaigning

We can fund some political activity and campaigning. But only if:

  • the activity is not party political. This means that it must be about policy, practice, or legislation rather than opposing or supporting a political party
  • the activity is meant to help the cause of your organisation and benefit the public or society

We will not fund projects where political activities are the main purpose. But we can fund projects that are mainly about campaigning.

What we cannot fund

We will not fund: 

  • projects where funding goes to a single organisation 
  • statutory activities 
  • activities that replace government funding 
  • capital projects that are related to refurbishing buildings, retrofitting or energy generation – like installing solar panels 
  • capital-only projects 
  • loans, endowments or interest 
  • paying someone else to write your application 
  • activities where a profit will be distributed for private gain 
  • fundraising activities 
  • VAT you can reclaim 
  • alcohol 
  • things you’ve spent money on in the past and are looking to claim for now (retrospective costs) 
  • items which will only benefit an individual, rather than the wider community 
  • religious activities (we can fund religious organisations if their project benefits the wider community and does not include religious content) 

What we’re unlikely to fund

We’re unlikely to fund projects that: 

  • are single-site projects like community gardens or allotments 
  • only deliver services like food banks or food surplus redistribution 
  • cannot show how they are taking a long-term systems change approach 
  • benefit an individual – for example, an individual commercial farm who is focused on profit-making 
  • includes work that should be funded by local or national Government 
  • includes party-political activities or work that aims to influence elections 
  • promotes the views or agenda of a single organisation or group 
  • cannot show how their work will positively impact climate, nature or the environment 

UK subsidy control commitments

Our grants are public funds. If we fund you, you’ll need to comply with the UK’s subsidy control commitments.

See the UK Government's guidance on subsidy control. We recommend seeking legal advice if you’re unsure.