The Big Lottery Fund are looking to fund projects that draw on the strengths and personal experiences of people facing hardship so that they can overcome immediate difficulties and be ready for opportunities and challenges ahead. The Lottery are looking for projects that provide tailored support, advice and advocacy to enable people to address difficulties and be in a better position to improve circumstances and plan for their future.
The Lottery will invest up to £30 million to fund best practice, collaborative projects that will provide a range of services including hands-on advocacy and advice, to better enable people to deal with the problems they are experiencing.
Projects will be rooted in the community and focus on supporting people who have most difficulty accessing mainstream services, for example, disabled people, those with learning difficulties, people with mental health issues and those who live in rural locations.
Successful projects will take a person-centred approach and work in collaboration with other organisations to help people address their immediate situation as well as underlying causes.
Projects should:
• Empower people by supporting them to have a stronger voice and better shape a response to their circumstances
• Ensure that people using their services are closely involved in the design, delivery and evaluation of services
• Build on good practice by sharing learning and evidence
• Pro-actively target those who have most difficulty in engaging with mainstream services
• Include a robust evaluation, as well as activities that support sustainability.
The Lottery want to fund projects that meet all four of the following outcomes:
1. People who have experienced hardship crisis are better able to improve their circumstances
2. People who are at high risk of experiencing hardship crisis are better able to plan for the future
3. Organisations are better able to support people to effectively tackle hardship through sharing learning and evidence
4. Those experiencing, or who are at high risk of experiencing, hardship crisis, have a stronger, more collective, voice, to better shape a response to their issues
Most grants will be between £300,000 and £500,000.
The Lottery are looking to fund five-year projects to support robust learning and evaluation and will work with them to build on good practice and maximise learning for the benefit of the projects themselves and the wider voluntary sector.
While the main focus of the projects will be on addressing hardship crisis through advocacy support and advice, projects may also provide other activities that help to support immediate need for example; hot meals, food parcels, emergency furniture, clothing and shelter.
To apply, organisations should check their eligibility using a questionnaire and eligible applicants will then be automatically directed to the Stage One application form.
For further information and to apply, visit: https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/global-content/programmes/england/help-through-crisis, or contact 0345 410 2030, or email: [email protected].
The closing date for Stage One applications is: Wednesday 26 August 2015, 12noon