Understanding our eligibility checks and rationale
At The London Community Foundation, we are committed to supporting small, local community groups. We recognise the vital role that these groups play in transforming lives and provide grants to those capable of delivering projects and services that address a broad spectrum of issues affecting Londoners. To ensure a fair and transparent application process, it’s crucial that we fully understand each organisation’s work, structure, and financial health.
We ask all community groups applying for a grant at The London Community Foundation to submit the following documents with their application:
- A governing document
- A safeguarding policy
- Annual accounts or an income and expenditure forecast
Some funding programmes will have additional criteria that needs to be met and additional documents that need to be submitted with your application, so it’s important that you carefully review the programme guidelines for the programme you are applying to.
The information below outlines the rationale for the supporting documents that we will always ask for and the checks that we carry out as part of our eligibility checks, which is the first review of your application in our grant making process.
Forms and supporting documentation
We ask for a governing document, safeguarding policy and annual accounts or an income and expenditure forecast so that we can assess the health of your organisation and understand any risks that may be associated with awarding grants to your organisation.
The information and documents that you provide should be accurate, up-to-date and consistent with other information you’ve given us or information which is in the public domain (e.g. regulatory bodies, your own website, your social media pages or other internet searches).
Examples of concerns we may have:
- The legal structure on your application form doesn’t match the information in your governing document.
- Images or descriptions of the activities/services you deliver on your digital platforms differ from the objectives in your organisation’s governing document.
- Financial information on your application form doesn’t match that held by your regulatory body (Companies House, Charity Commission etc).
- The numbers of or the names of the people on your management committee or board don’t match across the regulators that you are registered with.
- Information in your safeguarding policy is missing or outdated.
Governing documents
Your governing documents (such as the constitution, memorandum and articles of association) must be up to date, correct and in line with the requirements of your regulatory body. We will review these to ensure that the objectives of your organisation are charitable and align with information provided online and in other documents you have shared with us.
Examples of concerns we may have:
- The information provided about the organisation on the application form differs from the details available in public records (e.g. Charity Commission or Companies House).
- CIC Directors have more than 25% control of your organisation.
- Other information suggests that you do not follow your own governance requirements, for example, your financial policies, frequency of meetings.
Safeguarding policy
Your safeguarding policy will be reviewed to ensure it is aligned with LCF’s safeguarding checklist. There are several mandatory requirements that must be met, and it must also be "reviewed as necessary, always following a serious incident and at least once a year" in Iine with Charity Commission guidance.
Examples of concerns we may have:
- The language used in the policy is outdated (e.g. using Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) instead of Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
- The policy is vague and unclear.
- The policy is missing the mandatory information we require as part of our safeguarding checklist (see above for more information).
Accounts
Your accounts will be reviewed to ensure that they are consistent with other details you have given us in your application form. We will use these to learn about the financial health of your organisation.
Examples of concerns we may have:
- The financial information provided in the accounts is unclear or needs further clarification.
- There are unexplained debts/loans.
- There have been large unexplained losses in previous financial years.
- The financial health of the organisation is weak.
- The accounts do not clearly outline the income and expenditure of the organisation .
Previous grants – conditions and monitoring
If you have previously been awarded a grant from London Community Foundation, we will review our database to ensure that all the conditions of any previous grant/s have been satisfactorily met and that all required monitoring has been completed.
If you have not fulfilled the conditions of previous grant/s or satisfactorily completed all monitoring, you will not be eligible for funding as stated in the eligibility criteria.
We hope that the information provided helps you to understand the purpose of us requesting supporting documents with each application and the rationale for this. If you have any questions or need further clarification, feel free to reach out to us at applications@londoncf.org.uk or by calling on 0207 582 5117.