What we want to achieve
The funding we offer
We want to increase the knowledge, skills and resilience of civil society organisations. To do this we’ll offer a £150 million package of funding and support to address the most common challenges that communities face.
We’re offering funding of £2.1 million for this development stage, from spring 2025 to spring 2026. The partners we bring in will use this funding to deliver support to some of our grant holders. And others that need support most. They’ll identify and develop the support package that communities need.
We want the support we offer to be equitable. By this we mean recognising that not every community starts with the same resources. And that to make things fairer, we should support those that need it most.
So we’ll focus our longer-term investment on those working with people facing the greatest challenges. Specifically people, places and communities who experience the most disadvantage, discrimination and poverty.
To do this effectively, we want to support both existing grant holders and those that have not had our funding. We’ll support existing and developing organisations too.
Grant Holder Support is one of 3 partnership approaches we opened in January 2025. The others are:
Read about these in our vision for funding in England.
Grant Holder Support Development Phase Webinar
Watch our recorded webinar on YouTube to find out more about the development phase. The video also has a transcript.
You can also see a list of Grant Holder Support frequently asked questions (PDF, 106 KB). These questions are from the webinar and from emails we’ve received.
Development stage: what the lead partner will do
The lead partner will deliver support to grant holders and other organisations that need it most. By bringing together a partnership of suitable organisations.
To do this they'll:
- bring together a range of community, civil society and infrastructure organisations. Particularly organisations that represent communities who experience poverty, disadvantage and discrimination.
- bring in other partners that have specialist knowledge. Like organisations who help others to reduce their environmental impact, or increase inclusion. Or who can help others benefit from using data or digital approaches better.
- involve both emerging and established civil society organisations. For example, organisations that have been around a long time and those that are new or not mainstream.
This could include a mix of funded and non-funded partners. For example we’d expect to fund any community organisations taking part. And we’d not expect to fund organisations like other large funders. But they could still be a useful non-funded partner to include.
Any funded partners have to be one of the types of eligible organisation listed in 'who could apply'.
We’ll work with the lead partner to build the partnership, and may suggest some suitable partners.
All partners must follow our safeguarding expectations. And our approach to equity, diversity and inclusion.
The development process might include workshops and community engagement sessions. The lead partner will work to find out what existing and future customers need, and what support would help them. And to identify what matters most to communities. Then use this to provide appropriate support in this first stage.
Why we’re doing this
We want to do more than give out money
Communities have told us that they need more than financial support. So we want to support and involve the communities we fund in other ways too. We’ve committed to this in our strategy.
We want to explore equity-based support for civil society organisations. We believe this will help to achieve the missions we set out in our strategy.
We know we’re not the experts
So we’ll work with partners to give communities the support they need. We need the experience and skills of a range of partners to develop our new approach. We think this will create a bigger and longer-term impact from our funding.