How to apply
Your project must meet at least one of our funding priorities for the National Lottery Awards for All programme, which are:
- Bring people together and build strong relationships in and across communities
- Improve places and spaces that matter to communities
- Help more people to reach their potential, by supporting them at the earliest stage
This programme can also support projects that are helping people to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic by:
- supporting organisations to adapt or diversify to respond to new and future challenges
- supporting communities adversely affected by COVID-19
- supporting communities and organisations to become more resilient to help them to respond better to future crises.
You can apply multiple times during a 12 month period for a maximum of £10,000, however you can only have one live grant at a time.
If you currently hold a grant with us through National Lottery Awards For All Northern Ireland you must wait until this is closed before reapplying.
Reducing your environmental impact
We all have a responsibility to protect the environment for future generations. This includes the communities and projects we support.
We’ll expect all applicant organisations to consider their environmental impact and to have relevant policies and procedures in place.
Find out more about the environment considerations you could take on board when developing your project idea on The projects we fund page.
You can also access some links to local guidance on the Reduce your environmental footprint page.
Apply online Continue online application
It takes around 12 weeks to get a decision from us
We need this time to assess your application. If we do decide to fund you, we'll then pay you two weeks later.
If it's difficult or impossible for you to complete an application form
You can contact us if you have any communication support needs. We’re happy to talk about alternative ways for you to tell us about your idea.
What information you need to apply
We ask for the contact details, home addresses and dates of birth of two different people from your organisation. Both contacts need different email addresses.
One person should be someone we can talk to if we have any questions about your project. The other should be a senior member of your organisation. Both need to live in the UK.
These two people can’t be:
- related by blood
- married to each other
- in a long-term relationship with each other
- living together at the same address.
We ask for the legal name of your organisation - and its address. And what type of organisation it is
Make sure these are up to date and match up with any information or identity documents we ask for (when you get to the application part).
We ask for information about your organisation’s accounts
We want to know the date your accounts wrap up each year and how much income you have.
If you don’t have yearly accounts because you’re a new organisation (less than 15 months old) that’s okay. We can still look at your application.
Send us your bank statement
What we need
One bank statement dated within the last three months. So, we can check the account you want us to pay the grant into.
We'll not be able to assess your application if you do not have a bank account and bank statement that meet our requirements below and you’ll need to reapply once you have these set up. If you’re not sure contact us
We need:
- A bank account that meets our needs in our Financial Controls and Financial Governance Guidance
- A bank statement that meets our needs.
Our bank statement needs
It should show:
- the bank logo
- your organisation’s legal name
- address the statements are sent to
- your bank’s name
- the account number and sort code
- date the statement was issued.
Here’s a handy picture of the kind of bank statement we’re looking for.
We ask you for information about what sort of project you’d like to do
And how your project will help and involve your community.
We also ask you to read and agree to our terms and conditions
You can have a look at the terms and conditions.
If you’re not sure about the sort of things we ask for when you apply
What happens after you apply?
- You send us your application – we'll get back to you with a decision in around 12 weeks. During these 12 weeks we look at your idea and do our security checks. You can find out more about the checks we do. We might give you a call within those 12 weeks, to talk a little more about your idea, or ask for more information.
- If your application is successful – we'll send you an email with the good news! And we’ll put the funding in your bank account within 14 days.
- You can start spending the funding on your project – you should spend the funding the way you said you would in your application (unless we’ve agreed to something different first). We might check in from time to time – to see how things are going. Find out more about managing your funding.
- Share your story – you can tell your local community, share your good news on social media, or get in touch with local newspapers. There’s some information about how to publicise your grant. We’ll make a press announcement and share your story too.