This fund is now closed. Please sign up to our monthly grants ebulletin (opens in a new window) to stay up to date with our grants that are currently open.
Communities which have barely taken a breath since the last lockdown now find themselves facing an even bigger struggle to make ends meet this autumn and winter as the cost of living in London soars.
Here at The London Community Foundation, we know that our communities will turn to the people they know and trust – their local community organisation, charity or support group. We are already seeing a rise in demand for these vital services, and yet the organisations providing them are facing increased costs themselves.
Knowing this, we carried out a survey of community-based organisations in London to better understand what they need to respond to this crisis and used that knowledge to develop the Together for London Programme. We are delighted to have raised over £1 million in the space of 8 weeks, which means we can start getting money to those most in need.
We will continue our fundraising efforts and will share any news on future funding windows or opportunities on social media on Twitter and LinkedIn or through our newsletter which you can sign up to here.
What can the fund support?
Themes
Organisations must be responding to the immediate impacts of the cost-of-living crisis on the communities you support, particularly communities hardest hit by the crisis. For example, supporting:
- food security
- essential items and bills
- mental health
- financial advice
- welfare advice
As well as funding your support to communities, part of the grant can be used to support the resilience and sustainability of your community organisation. This means funding for core organisational costs, including but not limited to:
- salaries
- rent and bills
- capacity to respond to the crisis
Please note we cannot fund applications for core organisational costs only. Grants must be contributing in part towards work with the community.
Priorities
We will prioritise applications from organisations supporting people on low incomes or those who are likely to be disproportionately impacted by the cost-of-living crisis as a result of systemic inequality. We will first prioritise the following groups of people, although we will also consider funding organisations whose work supports people outside these priority groups:
- People with disabilities
- Older people
- Black and Minoritised Ethnic (BME) communities
- Carers
- Homeless people or people at risk of homelessness
Income threshold
We will fund organisations with a total annual income of up to £500,000 in the previous year. This means organisations with an annual income of more than £500,000 cannot be funded through this programme.
If we have a high volume of applications, we will further prioritise organisations with an income of less than £300,000 or those who operate in areas with high levels of deprivation.
Location
Applications are welcome from organisations based in any London borough, whose services are supporting Londoners.
Other criteria
All posts (including staff members, sessional workers, part-time or full-time posts, freelance workers) funded by these grants must be paid at or above the London Living Wage (currently £11.95/hour).
This fund will not give grants directly to individuals, however, we can fund organisations planning to provide cash grants to individuals of up to £500 per individual, if you can demonstrate that you have a robust process for managing this.
For full details on eligibility criteria, see the programme guidelines below.
Size of grant
- Grants of up to £10,000 are available
- To be spent within 6 months: the short timeline reflects the fact that this is emergency response funding
- Flexible grants: although grants will be restricted to address the cost-of-living crisis and your application needs to explain how you expect to spend the grant, you can change plans and redirect the funding as needed to respond to the crisis. You can do this without having to formally request changes or wait for approvals – time is of the essence, and we want to support you to use grants as needed locally. As long as it’s focused on supporting your local communities and organisation with the current cost-of-living crisis (see ‘Grant purpose’ section below), we trust you to make any changes needed.
Source of funding
This programme is funded through donations from new and existing donors, including Bank of Ireland and Trust for London.
How to apply
This fund is now closed. Please sign up to our monthly grants ebulletin (opens in a new window) to stay up to date with our grants that are currently open.
Deadline
- Application deadline: This fund is now closed
- Grant decisions by: Monday 19 December
After the deadline, all applications will be checked to ensure they are eligible and then shortlisted based on the priorities in this document. Shortlisted applications will be assessed in detail before the final funding decisions are made, based on the total budget available. Decisions will then be communicated to applicants in line with the timetables given above.
Contact details:
If you have any questions or would like to discuss any element of the fund or your application, please contact us on 020 7582 5117 or at applications@londoncf.org.uk.