Manchester City Council has launched its Equalities Funding Grant Programme. The Equalities Funding Programme is worth approximately £660,000 per year and provides grants of up to £40,000 per year to voluntary and community sector groups to deliver projects to communities, which address inequalities faced by sections of the community in Manchester.
The City Council anticipate that there will be few applications requesting the full £40,000 and expect to fund a broad range of smaller projects.
These inequalities could be based on age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership issues, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief (or lack of religion or belief) and sexual orientation. Applicants will be asked to provide evidence that a particular need exists, demonstrate what you propose to do to tackle inequality and demonstrate what impact your project will have.
Your project could look at one or more areas of inequality it does not need to address all of them.
Awards will be made for up to three years at a time and successful applicants will be required to submit quarterly monitoring information.
The deadline for applications is midnight 31 January 2013
This is a tight deadline but Manchester Community Central will be developing some online resources and offering a workshop and support sessions to help voluntary and community organisations within the City of Manchester to submit strong applications.
What you need to do
Check the eligibility criteria. Are you in a position to apply? Will you be able to meet all of the terms and conditions if you are successful? Have you got adequate time and resources to put an application in by the deadline?
To be eligible for support from Manchester Community Central all groups must register their interest by booking on one of the sessions below by Tuesday 8 January 2013.
Manchester Community Central workshops:
• Preparing a good application - 14 January 2013 at Macc – Ground Floor meeting room
This workshop will look at eligibility for the Fund and what makes a successful funding application
There are 2 sessions (subject to demand)
– Session 1: 9.30-12.30 click here to book a place
– Session 2: 1-4 click here to book a place
Please remember that Manchester Community Central cannot write bids or act as guarantor for applications. You need to have started work on your application before this workshop. You should bring drafts with you to the workshop.
If you cannot meet the criteria/successfully complete the checklist you might need to consider working in partnership with another organisation to be able to make an application.
We will offer some one to one support looking at applications prior to submission during the week of 14 January 2013. This support will be prioritised for groups who have not received our support previously. All groups accessing Manchester Community Central accessing support are required to have attended the Preparing a good application workshop.
• Planning ahead:
We will run further workshops after the deadline looking at:
1. If you’re not successful, what’s the Plan B?
2. Decommissioning services in a managed way
We will support groups to develop and strengthen their organisational structure and governance.
We will monitor the demand for support and endeavour to offer additional support or workshops where possible.
Manchester Community Central will prepare “top tips” sheets and post them on our website on a dedicated page for the fund, click here to view this page
To view the application form click here
Manchester Community Central will work with the City Council to provide answers to your frequently asked questions.
Please note: that whilst web resources are free for any group to access, priority for workshop places and one to one support will be given to groups in Manchester who have not previously accessed Manchester Community Central’s support.