Revenue Grants
Applications for Revenue grants of £10,000 or more per year can be made through our Main Grants Programme. The maximum length of funding that can be requested is three years.
Revenue grants are grants to fund core running costs, salaries and/or project costs.
Details of the types of grants we made across all our grant programmes can be found on the What We Fund page of our website. The activities or services that we will not fund are listed on the Not Normally Funded page.
We recommend that you download the Word or PDF version of the Guidelines at the bottom of this page and read them in full before starting your application.
Each of our grant programmes has separate guidelines. For information about applying for a Capital grant through the Main Grants Programme, a Small or County grant, or for any of our other grants, please refer to the guidelines for those programmes.
How to apply for a Revenue grant
Applications for Revenue grants can be submitted at any time, provided that
- you do not have an active grant from us;
- we are not already assessing an application to one of our other programmes; and
- if you applied previously and were unsuccessful, that more than six months has passed since you received your declination letter.
There are no deadlines and we do not have an application form, though we do ask you to complete an Application Cover Sheet. This can be downloaded from the bottom of this page.
Mail shots or general requests for donations will not be considered.
The Application Cover Sheet should be completed and submitted as part of your application. This provides us with key information; your organisation name, full contact details, the name and email address of your main contact, and gives us an idea of the project or work you want us to fund and the amount of the grant you are requesting. It also asks for confirmation that your organisation has a Child Protection Policy (if applicable to your work) and that CRB Disclosure checks are carried out on all staff and volunteers working with children or vulnerable people.
Begin your application with a half page summary. This should primarily focus on the project or work that you are asking us to fund, though you may also wish to include a sentence or two about your organisation. The summary is important as it will form the basis of the information we send to Trustees at stage two of our assessment process.
Applications should be no longer than four sides of A4 and in font size no smaller than 11 point.
Your application should clearly and concisely describe the project or activities you are seeking funding for, and include all the following information:
- Details of your organisation’s status (e.g. registered charity, company limited by guarantee, not for profit organisation or community interest company).
- State clearly what your organisation does, who you are, where you operate and who your organisation helps.
- If you are a branch of, or related to, a larger organisation, please clarify the nature of the relationship with specific reference to potential and existing financial support.
- Project details:
• Describe why the project you are seeking funding for is needed. If your project is based on the outcomes of a pilot, please provide details of the pilot, its outcomes, and tell us why the project should continue/develop.
• What activities will the project deliver i.e. what will you do?
• How many people will benefit from it?
• Describe what the aims of the project are and the outcomes (practical results, changes and/or improvements) you hope to achieve. If you are requesting a grant to continue an existing project or activity, provide information about the outcomes that have been achieved to date.
• Describe how the aims, progress and outcomes of your project will be monitored and evaluated and how, where appropriate, you will disseminate good practice to others.
• Describe how the project will be managed and name the people who will be in charge of it, their experience and qualifications for the job.
• How will you ensure that it is cost-effective?
• Describe your fundraising strategy for this project. This should include details of funds you have secured and applications pending. Please note we will expect you to have approached local and regional sources of funding before applying to us. If it is not appropriate to do so in this instance, please tell us why.
• Show that your organisation has an appropriate track record. - Give the names and addresses of two independent referees (i.e. someone who does not currently benefit from your services or that will benefit from you gaining a grant i.e. not a Trustee, employee or volunteer).
Please keep your application as simple as possible and avoid the use of technical jargon. Please do not include electronic media (e.g. DVDs) with your application.
Your application must be signed and should either be printed on your organisation's headed paper or accompanied by a covering letter on headed paper.
Budget and Attachments
Please enclose a detailed budget for your project. If you are requesting funding over more than one year your budget must reflect this. Please set out costings for each year of the project in separate columns.
If your request is partly or wholly for salary costs, please ensure that the salary element of your budget is broken down as follows:
- Salary
- National Insurance
- Pension (if applicable)
This is particularly important when requesting a two or three year grant. Trustees will consider annual salary increments, but will not consider increases to salaries of more than 2% p.a. If the increases in your budget are larger than this, for instance because of a salary scale you have for your staff, the balance will need to be raised elsewhere.
If your request is for part funding of a salary or project, please explain from where the balance of funds will be/has been raised.
If the request is for a salary, enclose a job description.
Please enclose your most recent full audited or independently inspected accounts, which must be no more than 10 months old (if the accounts show a significant surplus or deficit of income, or high reserves, please explain how this has arisen). If your accounts are more than 10 months old please send up to date management accounts as well as your audited accounts.
Your budget, accounts and any job descriptions are additional to your four page application.
What will happen to my application?
Before we begin to assess your application an initial check is undertaken to ensure that all the required information has been included. If, for example, an application is not signed or received with no accounts or project budget, it will be returned unread. Please make sure that you read our guidelines carefully before submitting your application.
Our assessment process has four key stages; additional information may be requested at any point, for instance, during Stage One we may ask you for recent financial information such as management accounts that are no more than three months old, an income and expenditure budget and a detailed summary of your fundraising position.
Stage One
Applications are initially reviewed by the Grants Team. If your application is eligible, we will write to you to acknowledge its receipt and to confirm that it is progressing to the next stage. Your acknowledgement letter should be sent to you within six weeks.
Ineligible applications will be sent a letter of rejection.
Stage Two
If your application fits our guidelines a summary of your application will be sent to our Trustees for their comments. Completion of this stage can take up to eight weeks from the date we acknowledge your application. If there is sufficient support for your application a visit will then be arranged so that we can assess your project in more detail. Applications that do not progress beyond this stage will be sent a letter of rejection.
Stage Three
If your application reaches this stage, one of our team of Volunteer Visitors, or a member of staff will be in touch to arrange to come and discuss your project and organisation. The visit can take up to three hours and will include an assessment of your request for funding, your organsation’s governance and management, financial stability and fundraising strategy. During a visit we would expect to meet with staff and a Board Member or Trustee.
Once a visit has taken place, a report will be written for consideration by our Trustees.
Stage Four
Our Trustees meet quarterly in March, June, September and December. Decisions about whether or not to award grants are made by Trustees at these meetings. We will write to you to let you know the outcome of your application within two weeks of the meeting taking place.
It can take up to six months for you to receive a decision from the date we receive your application. We cannot guarantee that your application will go to a particular meeting as this is dependent on the number of applications we receive.
Applicants who are unsuccessful are required to wait a minimum of six months from the date of notification before re-applying.
Please note that whilst your application may fit our guidelines, a significant number of applications will be unsuccessful due to the high numbers we receive.
Downloadable Documents
Links to documents open in a new window.
Revenue Main Grants Programme Guidelines - Word
Revenue Main Grants Programme Guidelines - PDF