Reaching Communities England

Who can apply

You can apply if your organisation serves communities in England and is a:

• constituted voluntary or community organisation
• registered charity
• charitable incorporated organisation (CIO)
• not-for-profit company limited by guarantee
• community interest company (CIC)
• school
• statutory or public body (including local authorities, town, parish or community councils)
• community benefit society (registered with the Financial Conduct Authority)
• co-operative society (registered with the Financial Conduct Authority).

Partnerships or groups of organisations can also apply

As long as all of the partner organisations are one of the types listed above.

We usually give our funding to the lead organisation in a partnership. They can then pay the other partners for the work they do.

You and your partners will need a written agreement about how you’ll work together before we can pay you the funding. If you need it, you can use our partnership agreement template (Word document, 51 KB).

If you’re an unincorporated group

You can still apply. But it might be appropriate for you to become an incorporated organisation before you manage funding of this size. It can be risky for your trustees or members if you are not incorporated. For example, they can be held personally responsible for the actions of your organisation. Including for things like unpaid debts.

Examples of incorporated organisations include companies, and Charitable Incorporated Organisations. You can find out more in NCVO’s guide on choosing your legal structure.

Some types of company or society need an ‘asset lock’

An asset lock is part of an organisation’s rules that stops its assets being used for private gain. For more read the government guide on asset locks for community interest companies.

You’ll need an asset lock if you’re a:

• community interest company (CIC)
• company limited by guarantee that’s not registered as a charity
• community benefit society
• co-operative society.

You need at least 2 board or committee members who are not related

Related can mean:

• related by marriage
• in a civil partnership with each other
• in a long-term relationship with each other
• related through a long-term partner
• living together at the same address
• related by blood.

All companies who apply must have at least 2 directors who are not related in any of these ways. This also applies to companies that are also registered as charities.

Who cannot apply

We cannot accept applications from:

• individuals or sole traders
• organisations based outside the UK
• companies that can pay profits to directors, shareholders, or members, including companies limited by shares
• organisations who are currently applying to another of our funds for the same project, during the same period
• organisations applying on behalf of another organisation (unless you’re applying together as a partnership).

We’ll only consider one application for your project at a time

So you should not apply to more than one of our funds for the same project at the same time.

For example if you submit an application to Reaching Communities and are not successful. It’s then ok to apply to National Lottery Awards for All for the same project. But you cannot send us both applications at the same time.

British Sign Language (BSL) video - who can apply

Watch BSL interpretation of who can apply:

With this funding we’ll help strengthen communities and improve lives across England. Our funding is available to all communities. But our priority will be the places, people and communities that need it most.

Our priorities

Our priorities are to fund projects that:

• support places, people or communities experiencing poverty, disadvantage or discrimination
  and
• support people and communities to shape the decisions that affect their lives.

Your project must also help achieve one of our missions. These are listed below.

By ‘project’ we just mean the work you want us to fund. We’ll fund both existing work and new ideas.

This section explains what we mean by each of these priorities.

Supporting places, people or communities experiencing poverty, disadvantage or discrimination

You’ll need to show us how you plan to reach people. And how you’ll deal with things that might stop people from taking part. Especially the people that need support most. You can use our funding to help you develop this.

We want to know about your knowledge, experience and engagement with people facing challenges.

We want to support communities that need it most

Particularly people who find it hardest to access support. To do this, we’ll prioritise:

• places with higher levels of poverty, disadvantage or discrimination
• communities that are least set up to help and support people
• projects or organisations supporting people or communities experiencing poverty, disadvantage or discrimination.

If you’ll be working in a particular local community, you should tell us where it is. We’ll ask about this in your application.

We'll consider background statistics about that area when we make our decision. We’ll do this to help us give out more funding in areas facing the most poverty and deprivation. Although we’ll prioritise communities in greatest need, we'll still consider applications that are a good fit with our priorities, wherever they are in England.

For communities that are not based around a local area, we'll consider other things. Like which groups of people in England are facing the biggest challenges, or are treated least fairly.

We plan to develop our priorities over time to make sure our funding has the biggest impact it can.

Supporting people and communities to shape the decisions that affect their lives

We want you to meaningfully involve your community in designing, developing and delivering your project. Especially the people that will directly benefit your work. There are many ways you can do this.

Show us how your work will help your community have real control over things that are important to them. Like influencing services they use, or decisions that affect their lives. We are more likely to fund organisations that are run and led by people with personal experience of the issues you help deal with. They could be volunteers, staff or trustees.

We know this is harder in some communities than in others

We can fund you to do this in a way that is realistic for your community. We’re keen to fund projects that help communities that are currently the least empowered. Specifically communities that experience poverty, disadvantage or discrimination. As this is where work on community empowerment can make the biggest difference.

For example, this could include people facing discrimination or disadvantage because of:

• living in an area of higher poverty
• having a disability
• their gender, sexuality or race
• a combination of many things.

You must help achieve one of our missions

We’re more likely to fund work that achieves one or two of these missions really well.

You should support communities to:

• come together, by:
  • Providing inclusive places, spaces and activities (either physical or virtual). Especially for communities where people are least able to come together.
• help children and young people thrive, by:
  • Developing positive social and emotional skills.
  • Providing safe spaces and relationships they can trust.
  • Involving them, and their families, in the decisions that affect their lives
  • Helping prevent issues before they happen.
• be healthier, by:
  • Supporting people most affected by health inequalities.
  • Supporting people who've experienced health inequalities to influence the health system.
  • Helping prevent issues before they happen.
• be environmentally sustainable, by:
  • Empowering people to engage with climate issues and adapt to the impacts of a changing climate. Or,
  • Taking part in activities to make a positive environmental impact. Like reducing carbon emissions or creating space for wildlife. Or,
  • Helping communities to have access to nature. By increasing the amount and quality of natural space for wildlife. Meaning that people can experience nature around them, and that more varieties of wildlife can thrive.

What we’ll ask at the second stage

If we take your application to the next stage, we’ll ask you for more detail.

We’ll ask for more information about how you:

• are connected with what’s already happening in your community
• build on the resources of your community. Making use of the knowledge, skills and experience they already have
• are working to make things fairer for the people that most need support
• plan to make a positive difference to your environmental impact. Even if nature and the environment are not the focus of your project. For example by reducing your environmental footprint.

We’ll ask more about your organisation, including about:

• its background. Including your experience and policies. And your leadership and governance.
• its financial accounts and information on your current finances.

We expect your organisation to follow our guidance on financial controls and financial governance.

If you’re asking for over £20,000 for land or buildings (sometimes called ‘capital’ costs)

Land and buildings projects are often complicated. So we’ll usually need to ask for additional information. This means preparing your application will take more time and more work.

We’ll send you our land and buildings guidance and checklist (PDF, 175 KB). This covers the most important things you'll need to consider. It also lists the details we'll need, and the support we’ll offer.

You need to own or lease the land or buildings you want funding for. You’ll need show you have either a freehold or leasehold lasting at least 5 years from when we’d fund you.

If you’ll be working with children, young people. Or adults at risk

You need to have a policy in place that explains how they’ll be safe. And so will any partners that are involved in that work. If you get funding you’ll need to meet our expectations on safeguarding children and adults at risk.

The NCVO website has child safeguarding advice and information services.

British Sign Language (BSL) video - our priorities

Watch BSL interpretation of our priorities:

How much you can ask for

Funding starts at £20,001. We want to fund projects of all sizes. For example, we could give out £50,000 of funding to help an organisation develop itself. Or £500,000 for a project where partners work across several regions. And a wide range of projects in between.

Most applications we fund are for less than £500,000 in total. If you need more than £500,000 it’s worth discussing this first with our team in your area.

We offer funding for up to 5 years. But we’ll fund short-term projects too.

What we can fund

You can apply for costs to deliver activities, or to develop land or buildings. You can also apply to develop your organisation, or keep your organisation running (sometimes called ‘core costs’).

We’ll fund both existing work and new projects or ideas.

We can fund:

• direct costs to deliver activities in your community. Such as:
  • costs for project staff or volunteers
  • equipment or materials
  • room hire
  • evaluations of your project.
• organisational development. Such as:
  • business planning
  • testing new ways of working
  • staff training and development
  • developing your governance and leadership
  • buying or upgrading tech or IT equipment
  • developing and sharing information about your impact and learning
  • increasing your capacity to work with others, like collaboration and working in partnership
  • becoming more environmentally sustainable.
• costs that reduce negative impacts on the environment. You do not need to be a climate or environment focused organisation to do this
• costs for the normal running of your organisation. These are sometimes known as ‘core costs’ or ‘fixed costs’. Such as:
  • core salaries
  • rent
  • utilities, like gas or electricity
  • equipment.
• land or building costs. These are sometimes known as ‘capital’ costs. Such as funding to:
  • build, buy or improve a building
  • make a building more environmentally sustainable
  • buy or develop an outside space, like a community garden.

We can also fund communities to change the services or systems that affect their lives

We can fund this kind of work under any of our missions.

This is sometimes called ‘systems change’. By this we mean making big and lasting changes to how organisations or sectors work together. This includes changing how people and organisations work together. As well as the resources they have, who has power, and what everyone thinks is important.

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 activity is the main purpose. But we can fund projects that are mainly about campaigning.

If you want to buy a vehicle

We’ll ask you to look into the best option for your project and the planet. Including what other transport options you could use. Or what type of vehicle would have the smallest impact on the environment.

We’ll only ask you for these details if we want to take your application to the second stage.

We cannot fund:

• activities that make profits for private gain
• religious activities (we can fund religious organisations if the project we’ll fund benefits the wider community and does not include religious content)
• activities that replace government funding
• activities that unreasonably benefit particular individuals, rather than the wider community
• projects where political activities are the main purpose. Or that support or oppose a specific political party
• lobbying activities
• things you’ve spent money on in the past and are looking to claim for now (retrospective costs)
• loan repayments
• the topping up of organisation reserves.

British Sign Language (BSL) video - what you can spend the money on

Watch BSL interpretation of what you can spend the money on: