Anne Aslett

Comic Relief Community Fund for England Opens for Applications Groundwork are administering the grants programme on behalf of Comic Relief Grants of up to £5,000 are available for grassroots, community-led organisations in England with an income of less than £250,000. To be eligible to apply, your organisation must be working in a local area to tackle the immediate impacts of poverty or build resilience to poverty and hardship. The Fund will support: Organisations that are tackling the immediate and urgent impacts of being in poverty, including providing essential resources like food, shelter, advice and healthcare. For example, foodbanks, community kitchens, homeless shelters, welfare advice agencies and health outreach projects. Organisations working to empower communities to take positive steps to lift themselves out of poverty in the longer term. For example, projects that build skills, increase access to employment, strengthen financial resilience or develop community-led solutions. The deadline for applications is 6th October 2025 (12 noon). More information here - https://lnkd.in/eJX8xpmi 'We expect this programme to be significantly oversubscribed. Our 2024/25 programme received more than three times as many applications than the number of grants available'

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THE LEEDS BUILDING SOCIETY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION: SMALL GRANTS Awards of up to £1,000 are available for UK registered charities across the UK, working in communities local to the Building Society’s branches to provide a safe and secure home for people in need. Grants are normally awarded for capital items in areas where the Leeds Building Society has a branch. Applicants do not need to have an account with the Society. Project proposals must meet one or more of the following criteria: o Financial stress. o Security and refuge. o Quality and suitability of housing, and/or o Health and wellbeing support for those experiencing homelessness. The Foundation welcomes applications from those who take a Housing First and/or relationship-based approach. Applications should show evidence of: o Strength-based practice. o Trauma-informed care, and o Psychologically-informed environments. The following grants are available: 1. Small Grants up to £1,000 for registered charities across the UK with an annual turnover of under £1 million, and 2. Large Grants between £25,000 and £100,000 (the Large Grants programme is currently closed). Large grants can be for 1-year or divided over several years. However, applications for a Large Grant are only accepted from charities based in or delivering work in Yorkshire and/or the North East. There is no upper limit for the annual turnover for applicants to the Large Grants programme. Charities benefiting include those providing: o Support for the homeless. o Centres offering facilities for the local community with emphasis on the young and elderly. o Skills training for young people with special needs. o Transport for the physically disabled. o Practical equipment for the terminally ill, and o Recreational and educational opportunities for children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Funding is not available for: o Animal welfare projects. o Charities and projects that don’t align with our purpose of supporting people in need of a safe and secure home. o Charities or projects based overseas. o Individuals (including sponsorship). o Local Scouts, Brownies or Girl Guides groups. o Medical research. o Religious, military or political projects, or o Retrospective costs. The next Large Grants application deadline is scheduled for Wednesday, 3rd December 2025. The current round of the Small Grants programme opened on Tuesday, 12th August, with a deadline of Monday, 3rd November 2025. Further information is available on the Foundation’s website. Contact details for the Foundation are: The Secretary The Leeds Building Society Charitable Foundation 105 Albion Street Leeds LS1 5AS Tel: 0113 2257518 Email: [email protected] For professional help with identifying funding opportunities or preparing strong bids, contact @Heaward solutions. Thank you to @GRIN SW LLP, who shared this opportunity in their daily grant bulletin

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Are more charities closing? At Esmée Fairbairn Foundation we continue to see a big rise in closures amongst the organisations we fund - mostly medium sized charities and social enterprises with a turnover of £100k - £5m. Closures increased in the past two years to *12 organisations per year* announcing closure, compared to *13 organisations in total in the five years prior to 2023*. This trend has continued into 2025 with six organisations announcing closure in six months. Organisations funded by Esmee have long-term, core funding, but are still opting to close for a variety of reasons. We have referred lots of them to The Decelerator, which is taking a short break right now, but has tons of resources on their site if you are thinking about, or worried about closure. https://lnkd.in/gFxhhF9J EDIT 14 August - thank you for sharing and commenting. I did not anticipate this would reach such a large audience! This is a small and specific dataset of organisations Esmee has funded, and I can't share details of why organisations closed without breaking confidences, but I can say that 1 in 10 are social enterprises, and that all closed for more reasons than "just" money troubles. This echoes learning from the Decelerator, but as a funder we're really conscious that "funding anxiety" is also driving instability and conflict - see their latest blog for more on this https://lnkd.in/egft6PtE

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