Fundraising News

New or Updated Funding Initiatives

Public Health Authority/NIAMH/Comic Relief: Change Your Mind Small Grants Scheme

Change Your Mind is Northern Ireland’s regional campaign to tackle stigma and discrimination around mental health. The Small Grants Scheme is a joint programme run by Niamh (Northern Ireland Association for Mental Health) and Public Health Agency. it is funded by Comic Relief and works in partnership with a range of organisations and community networks across Northern Ireland.

New or Updated Funding Initiatives

The Ouseley Trust

The Ouseley Trust is a registered charity set up to promote and maintain to a high standard the choral services of the Church of England, the Church in Wales and the Church of Ireland. It does this by making grants to cathedrals, choral foundations, parish churches, choir schools and other relevant institutions.

New or Updated Funding Initiatives

The Discovery Project

In 2016, The Santander Foundation became The Discovery Foundation to reflect its important role in Santander UK's new flagship community programme called The Discovery Project. The aim of The Discovery Project is to help people have the confidence to make the most of their future. In this fast-paced world they know some find it hard to navigate the change and want to help everyone have equal access to the best society has to offer.

Fundraising Regulation for Northern Ireland

Fundraising self-regulation IS coming to both Northern Ireland and Scotland, having already firmly arrived in England and Wales. The only question still up for debate is as to what FORM it should take. NICVA will be running an event around this issue on 9th September – details to be determined.

In the meantime, for information on the background to this key issue and an overview of the options see NICVA’s latest article here.

Shedding some initial light on the current s​tate of EU funding uncertainty.

It is fair to say that Brexit may have brought with it "the absolute certainty of uncertainty", particularly with regard to these first few weeks. For some NI charities, one of the most worrisome issues is just how EU funding will be affected. Access Europe NI, set up in 2013 to build the capacity of Irish organisations to access EU funding today issued the following statement, which goes some way to clarifying the current state of play.

New or Updated Funding Initiatives

Comic Relief: Small and Diaspora UK NGO Fund

Comic Relief believes that small and diaspora-led NGOs play a crucial role in development, but often struggle to access funding. For that reason, Comic Relief have a designated Small and Diaspora UK NGO Fund to specifically support work by small and diaspora-led NGOs. The fund total is approximately £3 million. There’s no minimum grant size, but the maximum grant size available is £350,000.

New or Updated Funding Initiatives

NEWSFLASH! Comic Relief: Core Funding for Small Organisations

Comic Relief have just launched an exciting new pilot core funding and support scheme for small organisations delivering work in the UK with an annual income of £100,000 - £500,000.

New or Updated Funding Initiatives

PHA Small Grants: Emotional Wellbeing & Suicide Prevention

The Public Health Agency (PHA) has identified funding for a small grants scheme to address the themes of Mental Health & Emotional Well-Being, Suicide Prevention and Self- Harm, and have commissioned CLEAR to facilitate this process. The Public Health Agency are keen to fund programmes founded on evidence based practice with a particular focus on those using one or more of the ‘Take 5’ Steps to Wellbeing.

OneFamily Foundation: Community Awards

The OneFamily Foundation helps fund community projects chosen by their customers. OneFamily customers simply nominate their favourite local community project for a Community Award of up to £5,000 or up to £25,000. Approved projects are then entered into a public online vote, which determines the winners. Projects will therefore need to campaign and raise awareness of their nomination in the Community Awards to gain the most votes!

Comic Relief: Maternal Mental Health

This scheme funds services which ensure that more women experiencing maternal mental health issues will have access to high quality community based support in their local area. It aims to address the fact that more than 1 in 10 women develop a mental illness during pregnancy, or in the first year of their baby’s life, with depression affecting 10-14% of women. Partly funded by HM Treasury’s “Tampon Tax” to support women’s and girls’ issues, proposals are welcome for up to £120,000 for between two and three years of activity.

Belfast City Council Small Grants: Community Festivals Fund

The Community Festivals Fund is jointly funded by Belfast City Council and the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure to recognise the role that festivals can play in increasing social cohesion, celebrating cultural identity and strengthening community relations. Funding is available for Arts and heritage activities; and other cultural events that contribute to the cultural identity of an area or group and celebrate the uniqueness of that area or group.

DRILL (Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning)

‘Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning’ (DRILL) is the world’s first major research programme led by disabled people. Its aim is to fund research and pilot projects which increase disabled people’s participation in society and foster independent living. It is fully funded by the Big Lottery Fund and will be delivered by Disability Action Northern Ireland, Inclusion Scotland, Disability Rights UK and Disability Wales.

I have received a handful of calls from people who re having trouble logging into the new GrantTracker since it was revamped recently. There are three main reasons why you could be having trouble logging.

1. Trying your old Username

For new GrantTracker you need to use the email account registered on your subscription as the Username. The old username is no longer valid (unless it was your email address anyway) You can use your email address registered on the account to request a new password from the website.

When the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland finally gets its online register of charities up and running it will transform local grant-making research. Ironically, it is harder for us to see the full extent of a grant-making from a local Northern Ireland Trust than it is from an English or indeed American foundation.

New GrantTracker is here, with some new features I hope will make your grant tracking easier. Things have changed a lot since we first launched GrantTracker in 2001. I remember getting CDROMs 'burned' to post to subscribers to install on their machine. Today, you can subscribe online and search for funding from any internet enabled phone, tablet, laptop or PC.

You can create your own funding directory on the 'cloud' - so every time you log in to your account your funding schemes, dates and notes are there.

The new MyNotes tool on GrantTracker allows you to add notes, comments and attach files to funding schemes.

So, for example, you may want to attach a draft Awards for All application to the scheme - or attach quotations, research documents and completed proposals.

Its up to you how you use the notes - you can add a date and the status of your proposal to build a grants management page to keep all your application information together in one place.

It's amazing what can happen in one day. Now you can access GrantTracker for one day for £10 and see millions of pounds worth of funding opportunities. You can get instant access by purchasing 1 day access using your debit or credit card.

Want to avoid the last minute plane, trains and automobiles to get your application in on time?

New GrantTracker will send reminders of upcoming deadlines 9 weeks, 6 weeks and 3 weeks in advance by email for funding schemes you track.

Members of NICVA benefit from £45 off their annual subscription. For the latest Coupon code check your latest NICVA news, the members section of the NICVA website or contact the NICVA membership offer.

If you are not an NICVA member and are interested in benefiting from the members discount, NICVA membership starts from £10.