How to tell us about your Reaching Communities project by video or audio recording
If you need another way to tell us about your Reaching Communities project, you can send us a link to a video or audio recording.
You can send a recording instead of writing an answer to the long text questions in the application form.
Your recording does not have to be professionally made.
For example, you could record or film yourself talking about your project on your smartphone.
Step 1: plan your recording
Plan what you want to say
For Reaching Communities you’ll need to tell us:
- the name of your project
- where it'll take place
- what you'd like to do
- how this work will achieve one of our missions
- who’ll benefit from it
- what difference your work will make
- whether it’s something new, or something that’s worked well before. We fund both types of work.
- how you’ll support places, people or communities experiencing poverty, disadvantage or discrimination.
- how you’ll support people and communities to shape the decisions that affect their lives
- why you’re the right organisation or partnership to do this work
- how much money you need
- what you would spend the money on
- how long you need the money for.
Think about who might need to help you
Like if you need someone to film you. Or if you want to record anyone else speaking.
If you record anyone else, you’ll need their consent. For guidance see the Information Commissioner’s Office guide to consent.
Step 2: record your video or audio
Filming or recording on a phone is fine. Do not worry too much about the quality or style. We just need to clearly hear what you’re saying.
So avoid recording yourself talking in places with too much background noise. Like outdoors, in a busy café or office. A quiet empty room is a good place to record people talking.
Your recording should be about 5 minutes long but no longer than 12 minutes.
Once you’ve recorded it, watch or listen to it back. Check the sound is ok, and you’re happy with what you said.
Step 3: upload your recording to a video or audio hosting website
We can only access your recording if you upload to a hosting website. There are many sites that let you do this for free. For example, YouTube or Vimeo for video. Or SoundCloud for audio. You cannot send video or audio files to us directly.
We recommend keeping your recording private. For example, on YouTube you can set your video to be ‘unlisted’. Then people can only see your video if you send them a link to it.
Make sure to check the privacy notice of the website you use.
Step 4: email us the link to your recording
Email the team in your area and include the link to your recording.
Make sure the website address is correct so we can access your recording.
How we'll use your recording
We’ll only use your recording to make a decision about your application, just as if you’d applied in writing. We will not share it publicly.
Our staff will listen to or watch it, and write a summary to help us make our decision.
We’ll only access your recording through the website that is hosting it. All we’ll keep on our internal system is the link, not the recording itself.
Remove your recording from the hosting website once we’re done
It’s your responsibility to remove the recording from the hosting site once it’s no longer needed. This is usually after we’ve told you our final decision.