Transcript of the UK Fund short video summary

Watch our short video summary of The UK Fund:

Transcript

Slide 1

This is a video summary sharing information about The UK Fund, a funding programme being offered by the UK Portfolio at The National Lottery Community Fund.

Slide 2

This presentation aims to give you information to help you decide if the programme is a fit for your work. We’ll provide information about the criteria and aims for the programme, hints and tips, details of what we’re not looking to fund, some examples of the types of projects we’re looking to fund and a checklist of things to consider before applying.

As well as this information, we strongly encourage you to read all sections of The UK Fund web page.

Slides 3 and 4

This checklist shows some of the important things you should consider before applying. If you can answer yes to all these questions, then The UK Fund might be a fit for your work. It’s important to note that our assessment processes are competitive, and we can therefore not guarantee success at any stage of the process. We’ll show this checklist again at the end of the presentation.

The things you should consider are:

Is your organisation eligible to apply for this programme?
Does your project meet all the criteria?
Does your project meet one aim well?
Will your project benefit communities across the UK?
Can you demonstrate evidence of impact?
Are you looking to make long-lasting changes to systems and services that affect people’s lives?

We’ll go into more detail in the following slides.

Slide 5

This slide gives information about timing and amounts

The UK Fund is offering funding from £500,000 to £5 million. We expect to fund around 20 projects per year.

The length of funding available is 2 to 10 years and we expect most projects to be 3 to 5 years long.

There is no application deadline, The UK Fund is an open, rolling programme.

Slide 6

The next slides give information about the programme criteria which all projects must meet

Slides 7 to 10

The first is Benefit communities across the UK: we can fund projects that demonstrate this in different ways, for example, working across the whole of the UK-wide, or across more than one country of the UK, or place-based projects that can show how they’ll share learning that could be of benefit to others. Or it could be collaborating between countries or sharing learning with people in other countries, where it might be of interest and use to them.
Number 2: Scaling impact: we’re looking for projects that can demonstrate evidence of impact and that have plans to scale that impact further. This could be working in new locations, working with different communities or doing more with people or communities you currently work with. It could also be developing better infrastructure or increasing the help you already offer to people.
The 3^rd criteria is: Support people experiencing poverty, disadvantage and discrimination: we’re looking to target our funding where it’s most needed. We have a strong equity focus so we’re looking at how things can be made fairer for these groups.
And the last one: Changes to systems and services: we want to support ambitious projects that can make significant changes to the systems and services that affect people’s everyday lives. We call this systems change and we mean big and lasting changes to how 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.
- Projects can do this alongside service delivery, but we’re not looking to fund projects that are only looking to deliver a service.

Slide 11

The next slides give information about the aims of the programme and we’re looking for a mix of projects across these aims. We think the strongest projects will meet one of these aims strongly:

Slides 12 to 16

Aim 1 is to Improve relationships between people with different life experiences – as we know that connection across social boundaries has huge and deep social benefits. This could be bringing people together from different backgrounds, generations or places.

Aim 2 is to help people and communities who find it difficult to meet face-to-face to make meaningful connections online – we want to encourage connection where there are barriers to doing this in person. Examples here include because of physical or mental health, poor transport links or because they live far apart from other people who have a shared identity or experience to them. We’re conscious of digital poverty here and would encourage projects to tell us how they plan to combat this.

Aim 3 is to help people from all backgrounds to influence the future of their communities – for example, setting up ways for communities to influence decisions that affect them.

Aim 4 is to help children and young people facing specific challenges change the systems that affect them – by giving them a voice and acting upon it.

And aim 5 is to help more organisations to involve and listen to children and young people – by embedding excellent youth voice practice into organisations to using what children and young people say to improve their communities, and the systems and services they rely on.

Slides 17 and 18

These are some hints and tips about the criteria and aims:

Firstly, projects do not need to meet all the aims. You’re more likely to get funded if you meet one aim well.
Similarly, we’re unlikely to fund projects that want to do a little bit of lots of things
We’ll only fund you to increase the impact of things you’re already doing – you should be able to demonstrate the impact of those things.
And it’s helpful to confirm what we mean by communities – we mean people who share an identity, interest or experience, or people who live in the same place.

Slides 19 and 20

We always find it helpful to explain what we’re not looking to fund:

So we’re not looking for projects that:

Are brand new, that don’t have impact they can show, or no plans for increasing impact.
We’re looking for projects that are able to demonstrate their impact and have plans for scaling that impact further.
We’re not looking for projects that only focus on delivering services: we want to see plans to also change systems.
We’re not looking for projects that only plan to move existing activities online: the aim about online connection is to support those who experience barriers to offline connection.
And we’re not looking for projects that work alone to make changes: we feel that the criteria are best demonstrated by organisations working with others.

Slides 21 to 23

These are some other things we’re looking for in projects:

Collecting learning to show your impact: we’re looking for projects to show that learning is a priority and to consider how they would share learning meaningfully, for example sharing it with those it could help the most rather than broadcasting it to everyone.
Collaborate and work with partners: we’ll want to know how you plan to collaborate with other organisations, or across sectors. And how you’ll make sure that organisations or communities you work with will be equal partners, even if they are smaller or less experienced.
And have a positive impact on people, communities and the natural environment: we’re committed to being an environmentally sustainable funder and are looking for organisations to share our commitment to this by considering the impact your project and work will have.

Slide 24

We thought it would be helpful to provide some examples that bring the criteria and aims to life, we’ve given 4 examples to show the types of projects that meet the programme criteria and aims.

Slide 25

Project A is expanding its work in one location, building on evidence of impact to date. Working in a cross-sector partnership, the project will bring residents together with community leaders to identify and act on issues that are important to them. It will demonstrate UK-wide benefit by sharing learning with national and international partners to enable them to explore the work in their own contexts.

Slide 26

Project B is building on work in three locations in England and Wales, scaling into another area in Scotland. The project encourages connections between individuals, local groups and statutory bodies to reduce social isolation. It aims to affect systems change by building infrastructure to offer a support network for vulnerable communities.

Slide 27

Project C does vital work to support young people who have experienced trauma by building on their strengths so they can change the systems they were once in. Funding will enable them to create a best-practice resource which will be shared with other organisations working with young people.

Slide 28

Project D is a creative community organisation led by young people, for young people, who offer a range of services and innovative engagement methods designed to support and amplify the voices of marginalised young people aged 8 - 25.

Slides 29 and 30

And here is the checklist again as a reminder. If you can answer yes to all these questions, then The UK Fund might be a fit for your work.

The things you should consider are:

Is your organisation eligible to apply for this programme?
Does your project meet all the criteria?
Does your project meet one aim well?
Will your project benefit communities across the UK?
Can you demonstrate evidence of impact?
Are you looking to make long-lasting changes to systems and services that affect people’s lives?

Slides 31 and 32

Lastly, here’s some information about the next steps you could take.

If you feel your project is a good fit for the programme, you can find an online application form on our website. The form asks 3 main questions:

What do you want to do and why?
How does your project meet our funding priorities?
What do you hope to learn and what impact will your learning have?

Slide 33

If you have any further questions, you can contact our advice team by phone on 0345 4 10 20 30, or by email at general.enquiries@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk

Thank you for watching this information video about The UK Fund.