Dormant Accounts NI | The National Lottery Community Fund

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Dormant Accounts Fund NI supports the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector in Northern Ireland to be more resilient and prepared for the future by funding activity that increases capacity and sustainability. The Fund supports VCSE organisations to adapt to future challenges and be more financially resilient.

Phase one opened to applications in January 2021. This programme closed to applications from individual organisations at 5pm on 3 March 2023.

All applications have been assessed and information on all awards made through the Phase One grant programme can be accessed on the webpage.

Information on the strategic grants awarded can be accessed at this link.

For the first phase, we developed a flexible and responsive grant programme that supported organisations to be able to adapt to future challenges and be more financially resilient. We supported organisations that identified the best way to improve their long-term capacity, sustainability or resilience to best deliver their mission.

Phase one of the Dormant Accounts Fund NI also supports larger strategic investments to enable collaboration and develop new and creative approaches to sustainability for the sector. These investments will be Northern Ireland-wide or sector-specific proposals that focus on specific themes. We are still considering applications for strategic ideas.

Area: Northern Ireland
Funding size: Applications closed for individual organisations on 3 March 2023. Organisations can chat to us about strategic investments.
Total available: Total programme budget will vary, depending on Dormant funds available
Application deadline: Closed to individual applications at 5pm 3 March 2023. Strategic investments discussions are still taking place.

How to apply

Phase One of the fund closed to applications from individual organisations on Friday 3 March 2023.

We opened the grant fund in January 2021 after extensive public consultation on the policy directions we had been given from the Department of Finance around building 'capacity, resilience and sustainability' in the third sector. As part of the first phase of the Fund we delivered an open grant programme and also invested in a number of strategic projects. To date we have awarded £21m to 249 organisations across Northern Ireland.  A significant amount of funding has been invested and projects are making a considerable impact. However, we also know that there are some gaps in the investment to date. These are outlined in the first learning report on Dormant Accounts Funds NI which we published last year.

We have identified a gap in the current grant programme for support to smaller grassroots organisations. Our learning has informed us that support for grassroots organisations is best provided by a trusted support organisation or umbrella body. Therefore, we will develop a programme for umbrella and membership organisations. We anticipate this programme will open in Spring 2024. This will ensure we reach the smaller organisations that have not benefited as much from Dormant Accounts Funding to date.

To supplement this work, we are delighted to announce that we have contracted an external evaluator, SQW. The evaluation work will run to May 2025 and will seek to explore learning and good practice around the Fund’s contribution to improving the resilience of VCSEs in Northern Ireland. It will also focus on communicating that learning to the Fund, grant holders and the wider sector so that other organisations can be inspired to make changes to help them become more resilient.

As part of their evaluation, SQW will be carrying out surveys and interviewing grant holders. We ask grant holders to ensure they are measuring the impact of their funding and reflecting and recording the learning from their project so a rich body of evidence is built for the sector.

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Strategic Investments

The Dormant Accounts Fund will continue to consider applications for larger strategic investments to enable collaboration and develop new and creative approaches to sustainability for the sector.

Already got funding?

Download the logo and read guidance on how to use it to acknowledge your grant.

Reduce your environmental footprint

The National Lottery Community Fund cares about our environment and are always striving to manage our environmental impact. We encourage and support projects and communities to do the same. Learn more about how you can make your project or event more environmentally sustainable and perhaps save money at the same time.

Who can and cannot apply

Phase One of the fund closed to applications from individual organisations on Friday 3 March 2023.

We are still accepting ideas to support larger strategic investments to enable collaboration and develop new and creative approaches to sustainability for the sector. If you would like to discuss this option, talk to us.

You can apply if you are currently delivering services in Northern Ireland and are:

an unregistered community or voluntary organisation
a registered charity (unincorporated)
a registered charity and not-for-profit company
a not-for-profit company
a Community Interest Company
a Charitable Incorporated Organisation.

You cannot apply if you are a:

statutory body
school
college
university
religious institution like a church, synagogue, mosque etc. However, faith based groups that are working in a community setting are eligible.

Please Note: The Dormant Accounts Fund NI cannot support new or emerging organisations to become more established. The programme will not cover the cost of supporting organisations to recover from the immediate impact of COVID-19.

If you’re not sure if you can apply

Contact us.

What  the programme supported 

Dormant Accounts Fund supported VCSE organisations to:

have the confidence, capacity and resources to achieve their aims
be flexible, adaptable and strategic with a clear understanding of their environment
be sustainable, with financial flexibility and longevity.

Here are some examples of what we considered supporting through the programme. These are examples and not set criteria: 

support for organisations to help them to develop long-term financial sustainability - for example, help them develop and implement financial planning tools or ideas for income diversification
collaborations and/or mergers between organisations
activity that supports organisations to communicate and connect with other organisations and communities more effectively
activity that increases the diversity and skills of volunteers and trustees/committee members within organisations
succession planning (identifying and developing new leaders) to support the long-term sustainability of organisations
activity that helps organisations to improve the delivery and impact of their work, by using the full potential of digital infrastructure and data analysis tools.

All applications were unique to individual organisations, as they focused on improving their sustainability and resilience and supporting their ability for capacity-building longer term.

What the programme didn’t consider

We did not fund existing programme delivery or expand the delivery of programmes. The Fund did not help new or emerging organisations to become established. Funding did not cover the cost of supporting organisations to recover from the immediate impact of COVID-19.

Any questions?

Contact us

What the money could be spent on

The Dormant Accounts Fund is a highly competitive programme with a limited budget. Therefore, only projects that strongly met the programme priorities were funded. We also considered the type of organisation and their location to ensure the grant programme had a wide reach across Northern Ireland and the VCSE sector.

Groups who applied for over £40,000 were expected to provide a strategic plan or a business plan that demonstrates how their organisation would be more resilient or sustainable as a result of the project.

We did not have a list of eligible and non-eligible costs for this programme. We considered whatever costs were needed to be able to achieve the change for an organisation. We did not fund capital refurbishment, purchase of buildings, loan repayments or costs for new buildings.

We asked applicants to consider how their organisation will have changed at the end of the grant. We looked for evidence that they had undertaken a thorough review of their organisation and carried out some business or strategic planning to inform their application. And of course, the larger the grant requested the more evidence we expected to see.

Ultimately, we wanted the Dormant Accounts Fund NI to deliver long-term transformational change for VCSE organisations.

Any questions?

Contact us