Here are some sources of funding of which I am aware. They may be of interest.
Village Halls Small Grants – Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs & ACRE
In 2023, a £3 million village halls fund was launched to provide support for the modernisation and improvement of village halls in England.
Managed by Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE), the fund has already awarded over £1 million to rural communities, helping them undertake ambitious improvements to their building. Works undertaken or scheduled to take place include new roofs, insulation, extensions, and more energy efficient heating systems.
The grant fund has now re-opened to new applicants who wish to undertake smaller projects such as disability access, toilet upgrades and new kitchens. Grant awards of between £2,000 to £5,000, and up to 20 per cent of eligible project costs, are on offer. Project expenditure must take place before 31 March 2025.
The scheme will remain open during 2024 until available funding is fully allocated.
Historic Houses Foundation Grants
The Historic Houses Foundation gives grants for the repair and conservation of rural historic buildings and structures in England and Wales, including their gardens, grounds and outbuildings. We also give grants for the restoration and conservation of works of art in historic house collections open to the public.
Grants are made to owners (charities, institutions, local authorities and individuals) who demonstrate a sustainable and long-term commitment to the care, management and public access of the historic country houses in their care.
The minimum Historic Houses Foundation grant is £1,000 and the maximum is £250,000 but an award of this size is only made under exceptional circumstances. Most grants are for less than £50,000.
Small Grants – King Charles III Charitable Fund
The Fund awards small grants of up to £5,000 per year to approximately 100 community-based organisations each year.
Applications are open 5th – 19th February 2024. The Fund would particularly welcome applications from organisations working in the East Midlands, East Anglia or Scotland and those working in the countryside or in heritage and conservation.
Rewilding Innovation Fund – Rewilding Britain
The Rewilding Innovation Fund aims to remove barriers to rewilding across Britain. Whether your site or project is in the early planning stages or looking to try out a new approach, you can apply.
From business plans to feasibility studies, community engagement to trialling the latest technology, works are funded that could potentially unlock further funding for you or move you up the rewilding scale.
The Fund choose the projects they consider will have the highest impact on people and nature, on land and sea, with opportunities for shared learning with the Rewilding Network.
You have two opportunities to apply for funding up to £15,000 through the Rewilding Innovation Fund each year, in the new year and summer. The current round for applications closes on 29 February 2024.
VCSE Energy Efficiency Scheme – Groundwork UK
The VCSE Energy Efficiency Scheme will help voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations (VCSEs) across England to deliver more efficient services for people and communities by saving money on their energy bills.
The Scheme is offering independent energy assessments to help identify energy-saving opportunities in your building. From January 2024, the scheme will also be offering capital grants to implement measures recommended in your assessment. Applications close at 12pm on Thursday 29 February 2024.
Applicant organisations must be a VCSE based in England and delivering frontline services. They must be able to demonstrate that they are financially sustainable, require support around energy and are not suitable for blended finance or loan support through other schemes.
The scheme is funded as part of a package of over £100 million of support being delivered by the Government to help frontline delivery organisations with the increased cost of living.
Capital Grants of between £2,000 and £150,000 can be used to install capital energy efficiency measures, identified in your Independent Energy Assessment (IEA), to reduce your building’s energy costs and support the delivery of your frontline services.
Community and Environmental Grants – Veolia Environmental Trust
The Trust award grants towards projects that make improvements to community facilities and the natural environment.
The Trust’s Community Grant Scheme is available to constituted not-for-profit organisations, local authorities and Environmental Bodies (EBs). Grants of between £10,000 and £75,000 are available to create or improve buildings or outside spaces for the benefit of the community.
The Habitat and Biodiversity Grant Scheme offers grants between £10,000 and £75,000 whilst the Environmental Improvement Grant Scheme offers grants over £75,000. Nature Conservation grants are also available.
The next funding round opens on 29 February and closes on 11 April 2024.
Fuel and food poverty grants – Utilita Giving
Utilita Giving will support individuals, families and households who are experiencing fuel and/or food poverty across England, Scotland and Wales, and who meet the charity’s purpose and eligibility criteria.
The charity will also support groups and organisations whose intentions match that of Utilita Giving, helping people in fuel and food poverty.
Examples of projects include:
A new van or transport for foodbanks charities to collect and redistribute food.
Additional paid staff to support a fuel poverty advice phoneline.
Additional money to feed disadvantaged families in a warm and welcome space.
DHSC Community Automated External Defibrillator (AED) fund
Organisations across England are invited to bid for a share of £1 million of government funding to buy life-saving defibrillators for community spaces like town halls, local parks or post offices. The fund will support provision of 2000 AED's. These will be distributed across England during 2023-2024, supporting any organisation based in England that is not eligible for the current Department of Education AED programme. The funding for the scheme is based on a first come first served basis. The funding will be allocated on the following basis:
100 applications will be selected by DHSC to receive a fully funded AED - selection is based on areas that are most in need of AED throughout England. Applicants will be advised in mid October and units shipped in mid November.
1900 applications will receive partial DHSC funding for an AED - organisations will be required to provide their own match funding of c.£750.
The closing date for applications is 21 September 2024 – or once all the funding has been allocated.
Bernard Sunley Foundation grants
The Foundation offers grants in the categories of Community, Education, Health or Social Welfare.
They offer three levels of grants. These are large grants of £20,000 and above; medium grants of up to £20,000 and small grants of £5,000 and under. Grants can be used for:
Capital projects which include new buildings, extensions, refurbishments and recreational spaces.
New minibuses and other vehicles that provide a vital service to those most in need in their local community.
Churches and other places of worship with a strong, secular community focus.
Charities or CIOs (Charitable Incorporated Organisations) registered in England and Wales.
Certain organisations with exempt status such as specialist schools, scout and guide groups, housing associations, cooperatives, and community benefit societies.
Applications are accepted all year round.
Small Grants Programme – Sport England
The Small Grants Programme seeks to develop opportunities for communities to get more people physically active. New projects from not-for-profit organisations will be supported through providing National Lottery funding of between £300 and £15,000.
They want to support projects that bring communities together and provide sport and physical activities for people who may be less physically active.
They also particularly want to support projects focusing on environmental sustainability.
They believe that communities that work together and share resources provide a stronger and more sustainable impact. Therefore, Sport England want applications from projects that demonstrate how they connect with their communities, make best use of the existing skills and assets in an area, and will provide the biggest possible impact to those who need it most.
The closing date for applications is 31 March 2024.
The Steel Charitable Trust
The Trust makes discretionary grants where they believe that their contribution will make a real difference. Applications must be for charitable purposes that fall into one of the five core categories below:
Arts and Heritage
Education
Environment
Health
Social or Economic Disadvantage
The minimum grant size is £10,000. Awards of more than £25,000 are rare.
Defibrillator grants – London Hearts
Grants are available to fund Public Access Defibrillators in communities all over the country.
London Hearts is a charity aiming to help and support communities with the provision of heart defibrillators and teaching CPR/defibrillator skills. They can provide a grant of £300 towards the cost of a defibrillator and storage as well as a free online training video.
When someone has a cardiac arrest, timely intervention is the key to survival. By making more defibrillators available, and by training more people to use them, the better the chance of survival for a cardiac arrest victim.
Grant schemes for electric vehicle charging infrastructure – Office for Low Emission Vehicles
The government offers grants to support the wider use of electric and hybrid vehicles via the Office of Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV). This includes:
The EV chargepoint grant provides funding of up to 75% towards the cost of installing electric vehicle smart chargepoints at domestic properties across the UK. It replaced the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS) from 1 April 2022. The grant is open to flat owner-occupiers and people living in rented properties. Private landlords and social housing providers can also apply. The grant is not open to homeowners (including people with mortgages) who live in single-unit properties such as bungalows and detached, semi-detached or terraced housing.
The Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) is a voucher-based scheme that provides support towards the up-front costs of the purchase and installation of electric vehicle charge-points, for eligible businesses, charities and public sector organisations.
The On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) provides grant funding for local authorities towards the cost of installing on-street residential chargepoints for plug-in electric vehicles.
The closing date for all grants is 31 March 2025.
Morrisons Foundation
The Morrisons Foundation awards grant funding for charity projects which make a positive difference in local communities. Applications should deliver on (at least) one of three objectives to be considered for support, these are: Tackling the cost of living; Enhancing community spaces, facilities and services; Improving health and wellbeing.
Veterans’ Foundation grants
If you represent a charity or an organisation that provide assistance to serving and former members of the British Armed Forces who are in need, you can apply for a grant from the Veterans' Foundation. Grants are also available to operationally qualified seafarers and their dependants.
More details and more opportunities can be found at: Rural Funding Digest - February 2024