The Solidarity Fund

The Solidarity Fund is for organisations that support communities to take action. And that work together to deal with inequality.

Your organisation’s work must be led by, and accountable to, people with lived experience

By people with ‘lived experience’, we mean having personal experience of the issues your organisation is trying to change. Particularly where that experience influences how people think about or respond to those issues. Or influences how they get organised to address these challenges.

They could be your organisation’s leaders or board members. They could help set your organisation’s policies and priorities. Or they could be deeply involved in your work in other ways. Such as an organisation that has members, and involves them in any important decisions.

We believe big and lasting changes are more likely when people with direct personal experience are involved. That’s why we expect your work to be accountable to people with lived experience. For more, read our blog on what we mean by accountability and lived experience within the Solidarity Fund.

Other kinds of experience matter too

We know that to have the biggest impact you can, other kinds of experience are important too. Including learned experience from academic study. And professional experience from working on an issue over time. We’ll ask you to tell us how you’ll use these types of experience as well.

We can fund different sizes of organisations

We’re not setting a lower limit on the size or income of organisations that can apply. But we'll check that your organisation has the ability to manage larger, long-term funding like this.

This does not mean that we’ll only fund larger or long-established organisations, like national charities. But we’ll consider how realistic it is that your organisation could help make the kind of big and long-lasting changes we’re looking for.

We expect to fund around 10 organisations in the first year. There will be further chances to apply for development funding in the future. That funding may be more suitable for organisations earlier in their journey.

What types of organisation are eligible

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)
• community benefit society (registered with the Financial Conduct Authority)
• co-operative society (registered with the Financial Conduct Authority).

You can also apply as a partnership of organisations. But we’ll only fund partnerships that already have experience of doing this type of work together.

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:

• schools
• public bodies (like a council, a hospital or a government department)
• 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)
• new partnerships of organisations that have not done this type of work together before.

We’re unlikely to fund organisations:

• whose work is not led by, and accountable to, people with lived experience
• that cannot show how their existing work has helped make changes to the root causes of poverty, disadvantage or discrimination
• that do not have a plan to build on their existing knowledge, relationships, or community learning to further their work.
• that work alone to make changes, instead of working with others to make a longer lasting impact.

We’ll fund organisations that support people to take the lead in dealing with the root causes of inequality. And that help people who experience different issues to work with each other, and address inequality together.

By inequality we mean poverty, disadvantage and discrimination.

You should do this by building power in communities. And by building and sharing learning about the best ways to deal with inequality.

Delivering services is not the main purpose of this funding. We know that work is very important too, and we can support it through our other funding in England.

We’ll fund work that helps achieve our community led missions.

What work we want to fund

Your work must help make big and lasting changes to the root causes of poverty, disadvantage or discrimination

This means doing more than just helping people with the issues they are facing now. We’ll expect you to think about why those issues happen. And have a clear plan to help deal with some of those root causes.

This is sometimes called ‘systems change’. And it means making big changes to things like the way organisations or sectors work together. This includes changing rules, habits and how people work together. It also includes the resources they have, who has power, and what everyone thinks is important.

Read our blog on what we mean by changing systems within the Solidarity Fund.

Your work must bring people together to deal with the root causes of poverty, disadvantage or discrimination

You should show us how your work addresses inequality for more than a single place or group of people. We think it’s important that organisations working on different issues find the connections between each other’s work. And work together to make wider changes. We’ll fund organisations that try to support each other and work together to deal with the root causes of inequality.

This is what we mean by working in ‘solidarity’. Read more about this in our blog on what we mean by strengthening solidarity.

How we expect you to do this

By supporting communities to build power

By this we mean developing the skills and confidence of the communities you work with. And supporting them to get organised, so they have more influence. This is what we mean by communities having ‘power’.

This could involve making changes to the places they live and services they use. Or influencing decisions that affect their lives. Read our blog on what we mean by organising for change and building power.

By creating, sharing, and using learning

By this we mean learning from people that experience inequality. You could be using this learning to help people have a say, and be heard. Or you could use it to support people to take action and make things better. For example, you could use learning to:

• influence decision making and changes to systems
• help people that are trying to reduce inequality understand what has worked elsewhere
• change public understanding of inequality by sharing people’s experiences.

Read our blog on what we mean by building knowledge within the Solidarity Fund.

We want to fund work that builds on your existing experience

You do not need to be a long-established organisation to apply. But we’re unlikely to fund work that’s completely unrelated to what you already do. We’re especially interested in work that builds on your knowledge, relationships, or things your community has learned. And that helps you take your work further or in a new direction.

You need to show us how your work will help make big and lasting changes to the root causes of poverty, disadvantage or discrimination. This means we’ll expect organisations we fund to do more than deliver a service.

Examples of work we want to fund

• Helping people build power in their communities. For example, supporting local people to lead and take action on things that matter to them.
• Bringing communities together to address inequality. For example, helping different groups build relationships and work on shared challenges.
• Helping communities share knowledge and influence public conversations. For example, supporting people to publish ideas, lead research, or tell stories. Then using these to change how inequality is understood.

Examples of work we’re unlikely to fund

• Work that’s completely unrelated to what you already do.
• Only providing direct services to people - without a clear plan for making changes to the root causes of inequality, or bringing people together.
• One-off campaigns that do not create long-term power or leadership.
• Only speaking on people’s behalf (sometimes called ‘external advocacy’), without supporting people to take action themselves.
• Moving existing activities online, without any other improvements or changes.

It’s fine for your work to change over time

We expect the work of organisations we fund to change as time goes on. Especially if we are funding you for up to 10 years. We’re comfortable with uncertainty, and we’ll be flexible. We want to support you to keep on meeting your community’s needs.

If you’ll be working with children or 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.

How much you can ask for

We offer funding for between 5 and 10 years. You can apply for between £1 million and £5 million in total. This means you can apply for between around £100,000 to £1 million a year.

We expect to give out £25 million of funding by March 2026. After that, we expect to give out around £50 million each year through the Solidarity Fund.

In the first year we expect to fund around 10 organisations.

What we can fund

• staff costs, including sessional workers
• development work (like staff training and development, developing governance, tech or IT upgrades and purchases, sharing learning)
• transport
• utilities and running costs
• volunteer expenses
• learning and evaluation
• equipment
• minor capital costs for land or building work. These should not be a significant amount of the funding you ask for
• costs to do your work in other languages. For example, if you work with people who do not have English as a first language.

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.

We cannot fund:

• activities that make profits for private gain
• religious activities. We can fund religious organisations if the work 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
• large capital or building projects.