New Routes

National Lottery Awards for All England

New Routes
  1. Funding
  2. Funding programmes
  3. National Lottery Awards for All England

A quick and simple way to get small National Lottery grants of between £300 and £10,000.

Area
England
Suitable for
Voluntary or community organisations
Funding size
£300 to £10,000
Application deadline

Ongoing

Who can apply

National Lottery Awards for All offers funding from £300 to £10,000 to support what matters to people and communities.

You can apply if your organisation is a:

  • voluntary or community organisation

  • registered charity

  • constituted group or club

  • not-for-profit company or Community Interest Company

  • school (as long as your project benefits and involves the communities around the school)

  • statutory body (including town, parish and community council)

If you’re a smaller organisation

We’re keen to fund smaller organisations too. So we’ll look at your income when we’re making a decision.

Who we can't accept applications from:

  • individuals

  • sole traders

  • companies that can pay profits to directors, shareholders or members (including Companies Limited by Shares)

  • organisations based outside the UK

  • organisations that have already submitted a National Lottery Awards for All application and are currently awaiting a decision

  • organisations that don't have at least two people on their board or committee who aren't married, in a long-term relationship, living together at the same address, or related by blood

  • one organisation on behalf of another.

What we're looking for in your application

A good application should do at least one of these three things:

  • bring people together and build strong relationships in and across communities
  • improve the places and spaces that matter to communities
  • enable more people to fulfil their potential by working to address issues at the earliest possible stage.

Your project also has to put people in the lead

It’s important to us that you involve your community in the design, development and delivery of the activities you’re planning. We feel your project will be more successful if you involve your community.

This short video explains it well. It might be helpful when you’re putting your application together.

If you’re a school

Make sure your project strengthens the community outside of the school too. So it should benefit, and involve, more than just teachers, pupils, and parents of pupils.

The kinds of school projects we don’t usually fund:

  • projects to improve school facilities or equipment
  • projects to help with staff training
  • projects that are part of the school curriculum
  • projects that involve activities the school should already be providing
  • projects that take place during teaching times (lunch breaks, or before and after school might be okay)

If your project focuses on sports, arts or heritage

We’ve made a few changes around how we fund sports, arts and heritage projects. We’re looking for projects where the main aim is to strengthen your community in some way.

What we mean by strengthening your community

We know most sports, arts and heritage projects are good for communities generally. But we’re looking for projects that do a little more.

An example of the kind of sports project we might fund

Let’s think about a football group for young people. Football is good exercise, so it promotes health (which is great). But we’re looking at how that activity strengthens the other people in the community too.

Maybe it helps the community with social isolation. Or the project might aim to move young people away from anti-social behaviour.

There might be other types of funding for you

If you’ve read through this page and feel like this funding isn’t quite right for your project - have a look on our website to find other funders in the National Lottery family.

Have any questions?

Get in touch with a member of our advice team.

What you can spend the money on

We can fund a wide range of items, and below are some examples of these. This isn’t exhaustive, so you should contact us if you’re unsure.

We can fund:

  • equipment

  • one-off events

  • small capital projects

  • staff costs

  • training costs

  • transport

  • utilities/running costs

  • volunteer expenses.

We can’t fund:

  • alcohol

  • contingency costs, loans, endowments or interest

  • paying someone else to write your application

  • political or religious activities

  • profit-making/fundraising activities

  • recoverable VAT

  • statutory activities.

What we need to know

Below is the information you’ll be asked to put in your application.

Take the time to make sure you’ve got everything you need before your apply online.

Contact details

You’ll need to give the names, contact details and dates of birth of two unconnected people from your organisation, one of whom will be the legally responsible contact for any grant awarded.

By unconnected we mean not related by blood or marriage, in a long-term relationship or living together at the same address. Both contacts need to live in the UK.

Organisation details

What type of organisation are you? What is its full legal name and address and postcode?

Accounting details

What is your accounting year end date and total annual income?

To be eligible for funding you need to produce annual accounts, or have set up your organisation less than 15 months ago and not yet produced them.

Bank statement

Make sure you have a copy of your organisation’s bank statement from the last three months (or a bank welcome letter if you have opened a new account in the last three months).

This should be for the UK-based account you want us to pay your grant into, if you’re successful. You must have at least two unrelated people who are able to manage the account you want to use. The statement needs to show the:

  • organisation’s legal name
  • address the statements are sent to
  • bank name
  • account number and sort code
  • date.

See more detailed guidance on what we look for on your bank statements (PDF, 455KB)

If you are a school who uses a local authority bank account, please attach a letter from the local authority that confirms your school name, the bank account name and number and sort code. The letter must be on local authority headed paper and dated. Other statutory bodies can attach a letter from their finance department that confirms the details of the bank account funding would be paid into.

About your project

Project details

You’ll need to tell us:

  • the name of your project
  • when your project will start (this must be at least 12 weeks from when you submit your application)
  • where your project will take place
  • all the costs involved in your project
  • whether your project targets a specific group of people and, if so, who.

What you want to do

You’ll also have around 500 words to tell us about what you want your project to do.

There are two key areas that we will be looking at when making a decision - make sure your answer focuses on these as much as possible.

1. You meet at least one of our funding priorities, which are:

  • bringing people together and building strong relationships in and across communities
  • improving the places and spaces that matter to communities
  • enabling more people to fulfil their potential by working to address issues at the earliest possible stage.

2. You involve your community in the design, development and delivery of the activities you’re planning. Tell us how you’ve done this.

Apply

Submit your application through our online form. You can’t use the Microsoft Edge browser when you’re filling in this form – because it won’t work properly. Try a different browser instead.

Read our guidance for online applications (PDF 354KB) before you apply.

If you want to find out what information we'll ask for when you apply, see the What we need to know section.

Apply online

We aim to let you know our decision in about 14 weeks.

Get in touch

If you need more information, advice or support in completing your application (or need the application materials in an alternative format) please contact us at general.enquiries@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk or call our advice team on 0345 4 10 20 30.

Text relay users, please use 18001 plus 0345 4 10 20 30.

We’d also love to hear your feedback on how you found the experience of applying.

Related Documents

Checks

As an organisation that gives out public funds, we carry out some checks on the information you provide us. Learn more about our checks