How to apply
Contact us for a conversation about your idea
- Email us at advicescotland@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk, or
- phone us on 0300 123 7110 (open from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday).
We’ll put you in contact with a funding officer in your area within 10 days of contacting us.
You do not need to prepare anything before this conversation. We’ll ask you about your idea and discuss if this funding is right for you.
If you’re eligible to apply for the funding, we’ll send you an online application form.
If it's difficult or impossible for you to complete an online application form
You can contact us if you have any communication support needs. We’re happy to talk about other ways for you to tell us about your idea. For example, Easy Read or accessible forms that work offline.
What information you need to apply
You can see a full list of questions from the application form.
We ask for the contact details, home addresses and dates of birth of 2 different people from your organisation. We need a different email address for each person
One person should be someone we can talk to if we have any questions about your project. The other should be a senior member of your organisation, who'll be legally responsible for the funding. Both need to live in the UK.
These 2 people cannot be related. Related can mean:
- related by marriage
- in a civil partnership with each other
- in a long-term relationship with each other
- related through a long-term partner
- living together at the same address
- related by blood.
We ask for the legal name of your organisation. And its address. And what type of organisation it is
Check these details before applying. Also check any registration numbers if you have them – like a charity number or company number. It will slow down your application if these details are not right.
We ask for details about your organisation’s accounts
We want to know the date your accounts wrap up each year and how much income you have.
If you do not have yearly accounts because you’re a new organisation (less than 15 months old), that’s okay. We can still look at your application.
We also ask you to read and agree to our terms and conditions
You can read the terms and conditions.
Send us your bank statement
What we need
We ask for one bank statement dated within the last 3 months. So, we can check the account you want us to pay the grant into.
We'll not be able to assess your application if you do not have a bank account and bank statement that meet our requirements below and you’ll need to reapply once you have these set up. If you’re not sure you should contact us to check if your bank account and statement are suitable.
We need:
- a bank account that meets our needs in our financial controls and financial governance guidance, and
- a bank statement that meets our needs - like in this picture of the kind of bank statement we’re looking for (PDF, 325KB).
Our bank statement needs
The bank statement (or bank welcome letter if the account was opened within the last 3 months) must be:
- uploaded as one single file
- a file of 12MB or less in size
- a PDF, JPEG or PNG file.
It should show:
- the bank logo
- your organisation's legal name
- the address the statements are sent to
- your bank's name
- the account number and sort code
- the date the letter or statement was issued.
If all these details are on one page, just send us that page.
What else we would accept
If you have a new bank account opened within the last 3 months, we can accept a bank welcome letter instead of a statement. The letter must confirm the date the account was opened and all the account details.
If you’re unable to provide a bank statement, we can accept transaction listings, if they include everything we’d expect to see on a bank statement:
- the bank logo
- your organisation’s legal name
- the address your bank uses for correspondence
- your bank’s name
- the account number and sort code
- date the transactions listing covers.
What happens after you apply
It normally takes around 12 weeks from when you send us your application to find out if you’re getting funding.
- We’ll consider your application
We’ll look at your idea and carry out checks on the information you provide us. You can find out more about the checks we'll carry out on your information.
We’ll contact you to talk about your application. And to get more information if we need it. - We’ll tell you our decision in 12 weeks
If you’re not successful, we’ll tell you why.
If you’re successful, we'll email you with the good news. You can start your project as soon as you get this email, if you want to. And we’ll put the funding in your bank account within 14 days (or sooner, if possible). - You can start your project
You should spend the funding the way you said you would in your application (unless we’ve agreed to something different first). Find out more about how to manage your funding. - We'll check in from time to time to see how things are going
We might also ask if you can take part in an interview or answer a survey. This will help us understand what's worked well and where we can improve.
To find out how we use your personal data
You can read our data protection statement.
Reduce your environmental footprint
The National Lottery Community Fund cares about our environment and are always striving to manage our environmental impact. We encourage and support projects and communities to do the same. Learn more about how you can make your project or event more environmentally sustainable and perhaps save money at the same time in our guidance on reducing your environmental footprint.