Here is a selection of current funding opportunities open for applications.
Wrexham Play Sufficiency Innovation Grant 2020-2021
The Wrexham Play Sufficiency Innovation Grant 2020 to 2021 aims to improve children and young people’s play opportunities across the county.
Organisations or groups working with or in support of children and their opportunities to play in Wrexham can make an application for up to £2,000. Depending on the demand for funding, the Wrexham County Borough Council Play and Youth Support Team may decide to give projects more or less funding than initially requested.
The fund has been set up in response to the Welsh Government making funding available to support children’s play and the Play Sufficiency Duty.
Closing date for submitting applications: 15 January 2021
For more information, email the Wrexham County Borough Council Play and Youth Support Team
Arts-based Learning Fund
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Arts-based Learning Fund will support work which enables pupils in formal education settings to thrive through engagement with arts-based learning.
The foundation is particularly interested in applications that support pupils who experience systemic disadvantage to access and make progress in their learning. Grants between £30,000 and £400,000 are available.
The Early Help Transformation Fund
The Early Help Transformation Fund is funding organisations that work with families in Flintshire. Flintshire County Council, in partnership with Flintshire Local Voluntary Council, is offering the funding to provide early help to families who have been severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The fund will invest in projects that address one of the three priorities:
- Parents with low or medium level of mental health problems that affect their ability to support their children
- Families where children experience Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
- Families who are waiting for a neurodevelopmental pathway assessment for their child.
Masonic Charitable Foundation Grants
The Masonic Charitable Foundation’s small and large grants are open to national and local charities helping disadvantaged children and teenagers to overcome the barriers they face.
With grants of between £1,000 to £15,000 available, the small grant is for charities with an annual income of less than £500,000.
The large grant is for charities with an annual income of more than £500,000. Grants from £10,000 to £60,000 are available to fund projects and can be used for salary costs, activities and materials.
Tesco Bags of Help COVID-19 Communities Fund
The Tesco Bags of Help COVID-19 Communities Fund is providing grants of £1000 to projects focused on local children and young people. The projects include outdoor activities and mental health support.
Grants will be given to voluntary or community organisations, schools, health bodies, local authorities and social housing providers.
Be Active Wales Fund
Sport Wales is providing grants of £300 to £50,000 to sport clubs and community organisations or groups that help people be active and take part in sport. The grants are Sport Wales’ direct response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Be Active Wales Fund’s two main purposes are:
- To protect clubs and community organisations or groups that are at immediate financial risk and need support
- To provide financial support to help prepare clubs and community organisations or groups to restart, respond to, or grow participation.
Start Up Grant
The First Minister, Mark Drakeford has announced a start-up grant to support new businesses dealing with the impact of coronavirus. The new start-up grant will support businesses that fall outside the UK Government’s Self Employment Income Support Scheme, with £2,500 each.
To be eligible for the start-up grant, businesses must:
- have not received funding from the Welsh Government’s Economic Resilience Fund or the non-domestic rates grant
- have been set up between the 1 April 2019 and 1 March 2020 and have not qualified for the UK Government’s Self Employment Income Support Scheme
- have less than £50,000 turnover
- have experienced a drop in turnover of more than 50 percent between April and June 2020.
Applicants will need to submit a two-page application form and self-declaration supported by evidence. The grant will be administered by local authorities and businesses can check their eligibility by visiting the Business Wales website.
Moondance Covid-19 Relief Fund
The Moondance Foundation has made additional funds available specifically to support organisations to continue their operations during the coronavirus crisis.
The foundation will consider applications for:
- Staff retention
- Current activities and services in jeopardy
- Evolution of services to adapt to the current crisis.
The Yapp Charitable Trust Grants
The Yapp Charitable Trust is providing grants for running costs and salaries to small registered charities in England and Wales to help sustain their existing work.
Small charities tackling the impact of the coronavirus can apply for funding to go towards their ongoing core costs.
Steve Morgan Foundation
In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, the Steve Morgan Foundation wants to support charities and not for profit companies based in north Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire. The fund is open to support charities that are losing fundraising revenue because of the virus.
Third sector resilience fund for Wales
Working with Welsh Government, Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) has introduced the Third sector resilience fund for Wales to provide cash flow support to help incorporated voluntary sector organisations through the current crisis.
It will involve a blend of 75 percent grant and 25 percent initially interest free loan. Organisations can apply for up to £75,000 and it can be put towards costs of ongoing revenue expenditure, including salaries.
Voluntary services emergency fund
The WCVA has introduced the Voluntary services emergency fund to help those providing vital support to groups such as people struggling to access food.
Grants wil support not for profit organisations working at a community scale up to a national level in Wales and can be between £10,000 and £100,000.
The grant’s aims include:
- Maintaining or increasing activities that support the vulnerable during the coronavirus pandemic
- Ensuring third/voluntary sector organisations have the resources needed to deliver vital services for their communities.
Community COVID-19 Emergency Funding
Pen y Cymoedd Wind Farm Community Fund is making emergency, fast-track funding available for organisations in Neath, Afan, Rhondda and Cynon Valleys area. The funding is divided into two strands:
- Survival Fund – providing emergency cashflow funding for organisations at risk of closure
- Project Fund – supporting additional services that meet immediate community needs.
National Lottery Awards for All Wales
National Lottery Awards for All Wales is looking to fund projects that bring people together and build strong relationships in and across communities. Also, it wants to fund projects that improve the places and spaces that matter to communities. Grants vary from £300 to £10,000.
Who can apply?
- Voluntary or community organisations
- Registered charities
- Constituted groups or clubs
- Not-for-profit companies or Community Interest Companies
- Schools
- Statutory bodies.
The Thomas Howell’s Education Fund for North Wales
Schools and organisations who work with disadvantaged children and young people (school age to under 25) can apply for The Thomas Howell’s Education Fund for North Wales grants. The charity considers funding applications three times per year.
Grants are considered to improve educational opportunities available to young people in any of the six counties of north Wales (Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham):
- who are disadvantaged due to financial hardship
- who are disabled
- who have low aspirations, excluded, at risk or with lack of opportunity.
The Ragdoll Foundation – Open Grants Scheme
The Ragdoll Foundation’s Open Grants Scheme supports organisations working with children and young people using the arts and creative media. Grants of up to £50,000 are available but the majority of grants will be between £5,000 and £20,000.
The Foundation looks to support projects that:
- evidence the power of arts and creativity and their transformative power for children and young people
- promote children’s development through their imaginative thinking
- ensure effective evaluation of projects to promote sharing and learning
- demonstrate how the concerns of children can be heard.
The Ragdoll Foundation is interested in funding projects that will benefit children up to 10 years old but will consider projects that benefit young people up to 18 years old.
Foyle Foundation
The Foyle Foundation’s Small Grants Scheme is designed to support smaller charities in the UK, especially those working at grass roots and local community level, in any field, across a wide range of activities.
The Foyle Foundation plans to make one year grants of between £1,000 and £10,000 for core costs, equipment or project funding to charities which can show that such a grant will make a significant difference to their work.
Tesco Bags of Help
Bags of Help is Tesco’s local community grant scheme is being used to fund thousands of community projects across the UK. Bags of Help is now is always open to applications from community projects.
Following a shortlisting process three local community projects will be voted on in Tesco stores each month throughout England, Scotland and Wales. In each region, the project that received the most votes from all stores in their region will receive a grant of up to £5000. The second placed project receives up to £2000 and third placed up to £1000. Grants will be awarded to voluntary or community organisations (including registered charities/companies), schools, Parish/Town Councils and local authorities, and social housing providers.
Viridor and Prosiect Gwyrdd Community Fund
Community schemes across South Wales will be able to tap into a £50,000 funding pot every year over the next 25 years through a new green partnership. Viridor, the firm working with the 'Prosiect Gwyrdd' council partnership, has announced the launch of a new Community Fund to support projects across Caerphilly, Cardiff, Monmouthshire, Newport and Vale of Glamorgan.
Community associations and projects can apply for up to £3000.
Biffa Award
Biffa Award provides funding under the Recreation theme to projects that transform open spaces for the benefit of the community, providing them with more opportunities to become involved in recreational activity.
Examples of projects that fall under this category are green spaces, woodland walks, play areas, sports facilities and community gardens.
Small grants of between £250 and £10,000 available.
Garfield Weston Foundation
The Foundation provides funding for projects in the UK in the general fields of: education; arts; health; community; youth; religion and welfare. There are no specific priorities for funding and a wide range of charitable activity is supported.
The Foundation awards grants upwards of £1,000
Marsh Christian Trust
Grants of £250 to £4,000 are available to help small organisations across the UK to pay for various running costs, such as: volunteer expenses, training days and equipment maintenance.
The Trust is interested in funding charities working in the fields of:
- Literature, arts and heritage
- Social welfare
- Environmental and animal welfare
- Education and training
- Healthcare.
The Trust funds registered charities with an annual income of less than £250,000 that have been established for more than one financial year.
True Colours Trust UK Small Grants Programme
Grants of up to £10,000 are available for small charities and projects in the UK working to support disabled children and their families on a daily basis.
The Trustees would like to support:
- Specialised play equipment / access to play and leisure
- Hydrotherapy pools
- Multi-sensory rooms
- Mini buses
- Sibling projects
- Bereavement support
- Family support / parent-led peer support.