London Community Response Wave 5

The London Community Response has launched two new waves of funding a crisis response programme of grants of up to £10k – with a quick turnaround to ensure that urgent needs are met. And a programme of larger, longer-term ‘Renewal’ grants which will focus on supporting the needs of civil society in the year ahead. Full guidance for applicants on both strands will be published next week.

To help you find out more about this funding, including what the priorities are for this programme and how the application process works, London Funders hosted a webinar for London’s civil society groups see link below: 

Webinar for potential applicants (13 Jan) – watch the recording

For your applications:

• Applicants should look at data on what they’ve been funding (children and young people + people most at risk) in previous rounds 
  
• You can apply again if you were successful in waves 1,2,3. If successful in wave 4 – you can apply for renewal but not crisis grants. 
• Organisation can apply for both crisis and renewal but only one of each.
• Don’t make more than one application for each per organisation.
  

Details and application deadline

Wave 5 – £10 million to award – 2 programmes: crisis and longer term as LCR want to move away from crisis funding (responding to feedback from groups).

1. Crisis response grant – tight timeline: Deadline 5pm Thur 21 Jan (1 week turn around) outcome by mid-Feb – will award 70 grants across London; can start work as soon as grant is awarded (funding to be used within 6 months)
   Looking to fund around the priorities: access to food; provision of essentials; domestic abuse; mental health

2. Renewal grant – (can apply for core costs OR project costs) – this will be bulk of grants awarded. Can apply for up to £50,000 – for 1 year (2021/22 financial year) – will be a max of 10,000 for some types of organisations rather than £50,000
   190 grants to be made across London
   Deadline: 15 Feb midday – funding from April onwards 

   Core grants: supporting organisation as a whole – posts that keep organisation running – development cost? Building work? CEO post or admin post? Work around impact or developing partnerships?
    
   Project grants: can ask for everything that relates to project, people who run project, software / training etc; digital needs? Can ask for some of core costs in a project grant – might be about partnerships needed to make project effective – make a decision between project or core (mainly core but developing projects = Core and vis versa)
   

For the application form click here

Fund will be based on priorities:

Building strong communities – community hubs, amplifying voices (contact Talent Works participants); capacity development support; work to build feelings of belonging

New deal for young people – work with youth centres, mentoring schemes + tailored support, work helping to get YPs voice heard

Robust safety net – adapting advice services (increasing access + continued crisis support ie. Food); advice in community and health settings; addressing rough sleeping and homelessness

• Priorities for both grant programmes is similar to other waves, keen to fund organisations that are:
  • By and for communities most effected by Covid
  • already have established relationships with community they support
  • small organisations with income under £1million
• Process similar to how it has been before. Pre-application questions to check eligibility. Asks what kind of application you are making – if renewal grant, is it a project or core costs?
• Questions are quite similar but read guidance carefully and decide which grant to apply for. 
• Can’t fund direct payments to beneficiaries
• Can’t fund schools to provide laptops

Tips:

• There is a word versions of the form you can download and complete in advance – see what you need to answer and provide.
  
• Read FAQs – updated regularly depending on what they are getting asked.
• Read guidance closely.
• One question is 50 words to describe what you’re asking about. Box below with 300 words where you can go into detail on why you are the right organisation, what you want to do.
• Ask for bits to be uploaded: constitution, accounts, safeguarding policy, bigger grants required to have budget – they might not have time to chase groups who did not submit document. Make sure you upload all attachments as going to be more

Research in December called ‘After the storm‘ – indication of where funding is going in the future – worth a read. Encouraged groups to take part in survey to help inform future rounds