National Lottery – The Solidarity Fund

The Solidarity Fund is for organisations in England dealing with the causes of inequality. The National Lottery mean by inequality; poverty, disadvantage and discrimination. The National Lottery want to support and strengthen the work over the long term of the many organisations already working on this.

The National Lottery will fund organisations that are working on making a lasting change to the causes of inequality. And that support people who’ve lived through these issues to work together and influence this.

You do not need to be a long-established organisation to apply. But you will be expected to have the ability to help make the kind of big and long-lasting changes the National Lottery are looking for.

The National Lottery are especially interested in work that builds on your knowledge, relationships, or things your community has learned. And that helps you take your work further or in a new direction.

You can apply for between £1 million and £5 million in total. You can spend this funding over 5 to 10 years.

Who will be funded:
Organisation’s whose work must is led by, and accountable to, people with lived experience of the issues you’re trying to change. They could be your organisation’s leaders. Or they could be deeply involved in your work in other ways.

Your work must:

• Help make big and lasting changes to the root causes of poverty, disadvantage or discrimination. This means doing more than helping people with the issues they are facing now. Like changing the way organisations or sectors work together, so it’s fairer for people. This is sometimes called ‘systems change’.
• Bring people together to deal with the root causes of poverty, disadvantage or discrimination. By supporting people to work on this across different issues and communities. This is what we mean by working in ‘solidarity’.

You must:

• Support communities to build power. So they have the skills, confidence, and support to get organised and make lasting change.
• Create share, and use learning from people that experience inequality. To support them to have a say and be heard. And to support people to take action to make things better.

Applications can be made at any time.