Grants are available to not-for-profit groups for projects in the UK that help bring diverse communities together as well as projects that help children and young people use their voice to influence change.
The National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF) distributes over £600 million a year to communities across the UK, raised by players of The National Lottery.
Created in July 2023, the UK Fund is one of the first significant commitments as part of its new strategy, ‘It starts with community.’
The funding is for projects that:
- Benefit communities across the UK (by working in different locations, or by sharing learning between countries).
- Scale up their impact by expanding their work (by helping more people, or doing more for people they already work with).
- Support people experiencing poverty, disadvantage, and discrimination.
- Help make significant changes to services or systems that affect people’s everyday lives.
Projects must also meet one of the following aims:
- Improve relationships between people with different life experiences.
- Help people and communities who find it difficult to meet face-to-face to make meaningful connections online.
- Help people from all backgrounds to influence the future of their communities.
- Help children and young people facing specific challenges change the systems that affect them.
- Help more organisations to involve and listen to children and young people.
Grants of £500,000 to £5 million are available.
Funding is available for 2 to 10 years.
It is expected that around 20 projects will be funded a year.
The funding is intended to increase the impact of what is already being done.
Grants can cover the following costs:
- Staff costs, including sessional workers.
- Development work (testing new ways of working, staff training and development, developing governance, tech or IT upgrades and purchases, sharing learning).
- Transport.
- Utilities and running costs.
- Volunteer expenses.
- Learning and evaluation.
- Equipment.
- Capital costs, though these are unlikely to make up a significant part of the budget.
- Costs associated with delivering the project in other languages.
Some political activity and campaigning can be funded but only if:
- The activity is not party political. This means that it must be about policy, practice, or legislation rather than opposing or supporting a political party.
- The activity is meant to help the cause of the organisation and benefit the public or society.
NLCF will not fund projects where political activities are the main purpose. But it can fund projects that are mainly about campaigning.
NLCF is holding three information webinars giving details about the July 2024 updates to the fund:
Registration for the webinars is required and can be done through the NLCF website.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. It takes at least six months from receipt of application to notification of decisions.
Before applying, applicants should watch the short video summary which can be found on the NLCF website along with the full guidance notes and the online application form.
Contact the National Lottery Community Fund for further information.
