Expressions of interest for the development phase of Grant Holder Support closed on 5 February 2025.
We want to deliver a package of funding and support to address the most common challenges that communities face. We’ve committed £150 million of funding to this until 2030. This funding will help increase the knowledge, skills and resilience of civil society organisations.
So there will be more opportunities for funding and support to come.
We’re now choosing a partner to lead the development stage of this package of support. We’re offering £2.1 million in funding for this development stage from spring 2025 to spring 2026.
The lead partner will deliver support to our grant holders and organisations that need it most.
To do this they’ll:
bring together a range of community, civil society and infrastructure organisations. Particularly organisations that represent communities who experience poverty, disadvantage and discrimination
bring in other partners that have specialist knowledge. Like organisations who help others to reduce their environmental impact, or increase inclusion. Or who can help others benefit from using data or digital approaches better
involve both emerging and established civil society organisations. For example, organisations that have been around a long time and those that are new or not mainstream.
The development process might include workshops and community engagement sessions. The lead partner will find out what existing and future customers need, and what support would help them. And identify what matters most to communities. Then use this to provide appropriate support in this development stage.
Area
England
Suitable for
Community or voluntary organisations
Funding size
One grant for a lead partner, supporting around 8 to 10 partners. With £200,000 for the lead partner. And £1.9 million funding for civil society organisations participating in the partnership and development work.
What happens after you send us your expression of interest
We’ll review your expression of interest against our priorities. We’re expecting to get a lot of expressions of interest.
We’ll tell you if you’re invited to the next stage by the end of February 2025.
If we invite you to the next stage, we’ll ask you for some additional information and complete some checks. Learn more about our checks. We’ll do this by phone or email.
We’ll use this additional information to make a decision. We’ll aim to tell you our decision by the end of May 2025.
If your application is successful – we'll contact you with the good news. If your application is unsuccessful, we’ll give you feedback.
What happens if you get funding
We’ll get in touch with you to discuss what happens next.
Before we can pay any of your funding you’ll need to:
send us a bank statement dated within the last 3 months. So we can check the account you want us to pay the funding into
sign an agreement with us and return a copy.
We may formally evaluate the work that happens with this funding. We’ll let you know in advance if we need you to take part.
We’ll work with you to develop a partnership
Including getting the right mix of partners to involve. And setting up a formal partnership. This could include a mix of funded and non-funded partners. Find out more about what we’ll expect from partnerships in what we want to achieve.
We’ll work with you to create a partnership agreement. All the partners will need to sign this. This is so that we’re all clear on our roles and responsibilities.
The lead partner organisation will work with us to set up a partnership including a range of specialists and community or civil society organisations. Together, we’ll deliver and learn from the development stage of the Grant Holder Support package. And share learning about what works best.
We’ll be working with a lead organisation that has:
experience of working with or leading partners on shared projects
links with other partners theywant to involve.
We’re particularly interested in working with a partner that:
has experience in supporting civil society organisations, but that may not have received funding from us before
has experience working with people, places and communities who experience the most poverty, disadvantage and discrimination.
What types of organisation could be a partner
Expressions of interest were open to these types of organisation:
constituted voluntary or community organisation
registered, exempt or excepted charity
charitable incorporated organisation (CIO)
not-for-profit company limited by guarantee - they must be a registered charity or have a not-for-profit 'asset lock' clause in their articles of association
community interest company (CIC)
community benefit society
co-operative society - they must have a not-for-profit 'asset lock' clause in their society rules and also be registered with the Financial Conduct Authority.
Any other funded partners must also be one of these types of organisation.
Partners need at least 2 board or committee members who are not 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.
All companies who apply must have at least 2 directors who are not related in any of these ways. This also applies to companies that are also registered as charities.
Who could not apply
individuals
sole traders
organisations based outside the UK
companies that can pay profits to directors, shareholders or members (including Companies Limited by Shares).
We want to increase the knowledge, skills and resilience of civil society organisations. To do this we’ll offer a £150 million package of funding and support to address the most common challenges that communities face.
We’re offering funding of £2.1 million for this development stage, from spring 2025 to spring 2026. The partners we bring in will use this funding to deliver support to some of our grant holders. And others that need support most. They’ll identify and develop the support package that communities need.
We want the support we offer to be equitable. By this we mean recognising that not every community starts with the same resources. And that to make things fairer, we should support those that need it most.
So we’ll focus our longer-term investment on those working with people facing the greatest challenges. Specifically people, places and communities who experience the most disadvantage, discrimination and poverty.
To do this effectively, we want to support both existing grant holders and those that have not had our funding. We’ll support existing and developing organisations too.
Grant Holder Support is one of 3 partnership approaches we opened in January 2025. The others are:
The lead partner will deliver support to grant holders and other organisations that need it most. By bringing together a partnership of suitable organisations.
To do this they'll:
bring together a range of community, civil society and infrastructure organisations. Particularly organisations that represent communities who experience poverty, disadvantage and discrimination
bring in other partners that have specialist knowledge. Like organisations who help others to reduce their environmental impact, or increase inclusion. Or who can help others benefit from using data or digital approaches better
involve both emerging and established civil society organisations. For example, organisations that have been around a long time and those that are new or not mainstream.
This could include a mix of funded and non-funded partners. For example we’d expect to fund any community organisations taking part. And we’d not expect to fund organisations like other large funders. But they could still be a useful non-funded partner to include.
Any funded partners have to be one of the types of eligible organisation listed in who can apply.
We’ll work with the lead partner to build the partnership, and may suggest some suitable partners.
The development process might include workshops and community engagement sessions. The lead partner will work to find out what existing and future customers need, and what support would help them. And to identify what matters most to communities. Then use this to provide appropriate support in this first stage.
Why we’re doing this
We want to do more than give out money
Communities have told us that they need more than financial support. So we want to support and involve the communities we fund in other ways too. We’ve committed to this in our new strategy, It Starts with Community.
We want to explore equity-based support for civil society organisations. We believe this will help to achieve the missions we set out in our strategy.
We know we’re not the experts
So we’ll work with partners to give communities the support they need. We need the experience and skills of a range of partners to develop our new approach. We think this will create a bigger and longer-term impact from our funding.
In total we’ve committed £150 million to our Grant Holder Support package until 2030.
For this development stage we’re offering funding of £2.1 million. We’ll give this funding to the lead partner organisation. We’ll then work with them to bring other partners in to deliver and develop this stage of the Grant Holder Support package together.
Of the £2.1 million, £200,000 is allocated to fund the work of the lead partner. The remaining £1.9 million funding is for the other partner organisations taking part in the development stage.
What partners can spend the money on
If you're a partner, we can fund:
delivery of support to grant holders and civil society organisations
salary costs
transport costs and expenses
the costs for other members of the partnership to take part
other costs involved in working as our partner. Check with us if you're not sure.
We can also fund overheads
This could include things like part of your rent or insurance. Or part of a salary for someone not directly involved in this work. Like a senior manager or an office admin worker.
For example, being the lead partner could end up being a quarter of the work your organisation does. In that case, we might fund a quarter of your overheads for that time.
