Our Funding and support

An equity-based approach to tackle inequality

Though our funding is available to all communities, we’ll take an equity-based approach. This means across all our work with communities and our four missions, we’ll invest most in places, people and communities who experience poverty, disadvantage and discrimination.

Our work aims to support communities to build from their strengths. We’ll support what matters most to different communities, including long-term investment to address deep-rooted challenges.

Types of funding

We’ll invest in projects supporting bold new approaches, transformation and long-term change with an explicit focus on our four missions. We’ll also offer funding that is responsive to communities both in the four mission areas, and more broadly on what matters most to communities.

We’ll continue to offer different types of funding, from accessible grants starting from £300 up to £20,000, to longer term grants or strategic investments with partners. Typically, funding will be for between one and five years, with flexibility to support some projects and approaches
targeting longer-term or transformational change up to 10 years.

We’ll explore different costs with organisations to help determine the most appropriate type of funding. These include project, capital, organisational, partnership and developmental costs.

Although our funding is the most important way we support communities, we also help in other ways:

Supporting

We’ll give grant holders advice and information to help increase their impact and organisational resilience. This will include support for grant holders to improve their environmental impact, increase inclusion and harness the benefit of digital and data innovation.

Learning

We’ll use proportionate ways to gather data, evidence and learning, creating useful insights and helping to understand impact. We’ll share learning to increase understanding of communities that are useful to grant holders, those interested in delivering and supporting community-led change, and wider society.

Convening

We’ll bring different organisations together to explore challenges and develop new opportunities and partnerships.

Championing

Using our position and influence, we’ll celebrate and promote the power of communities to strengthen society and improve lives.

Partnership

We know there is huge power in working together with others. We’ll create partnerships with other National Lottery distributors, funders, governments, civil society representative organisations, researchers, businesses and communities themselves.

Participation

We’ll increase the involvement of civil society organisations and communities in shaping our work. This will help us to strengthen our support for communities.