Grants

Grants Programme Guidelines

Strengthening the Third Sector

Aims of the Programme
The third sector in London is both large and diverse, comprising charities, voluntary organisations, community organisations and social enterprises. The regulatory and funding environments in which they work are more complex than ever before and keeping up with all the requirements of organisational management are ever more onerous.

We know that many organisations struggle just to keep afloat. Planning, budgeting, financial management and reviewing your work can seem like luxuries when time and money are short.

We want to fund second-tier organisations to help the third sector become stronger. Because there are so many needs and so many organisations, we have identified several key areas on which to concentrate.

Stronger organisations will be able to deliver better services and prove their value to future prospective funders at the same time.

Note: only second tier organisations are funded on this programme. We do not provide funds for you to strengthen your own organisations.

What will we fund?

• Work to increase and improve volunteering.
• Work strengthening minority ethnic and refugee community organisations and encouraging their collaboration.
• New and strategic approaches to the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT).
• Services improving financial management and skills.
• Work improving the quality of evaluation.

Please specify on your application form which of these themes your project is addressing.

Making a Difference
We want to fund work which really improves the capacity of front-line organisations to make a difference. To this end, we want to track the changes they have made because of your intervention -“outcomes” – and how this is likely to improve their performance.

We want you to tell us how your work will contribute to our overall programme outcomes. You will need to demonstrate that your project can contribute one or more of these and that you have systems in place to collect information on the beneficial changes you have facilitated.

Our Programme Outcomes
We want to fund work which will achieve one or more of the following:

• more people undertake volunteering and volunteering standards are raised
• minority ethnic and/or refugee community organisations become more sustainable and work more collaboratively
• more strategic approaches to ICT development in the sector
• more organisations with improved financial management and financial skills
• more organisations with improved evaluation systems.

As part of our monitoring requirements you will be asked to regularly report on your progress towards achieving these outcomes and we recognise that some will be long-term. You may include other outcomes not listed above and there may well be unforeseen ‘outcomes’ which emerge as your work develops.

Second tier organisations are expected to understand evaluation terminology and to demonstrate this in their applications.

Good Practice
Please show how you:

• involve the feedback of organisations you serve in the continuous improvement of your services
• value and promote diversity
• use your learning for the benefit of the third sector
• are taking steps to reduce your carbon footprint and that of the organisations you serve.