Comic Relief launches new core funding for small organisations

17th May 2017

Recently, we unveiled our new grants strategy(opens in new window), focusing on four areas that will help us best achieve our vision of ‘A Just World Free from Poverty’, in which everyone is safe, healthy, educated and empowered. We can now announce that we are launching an exciting new initiative to support small organisations delivering work in the UK with an annual income of between £100,000 - £500,000, with applications open from June 16th 2016.

We know that smaller organisations who are rooted in the communities they serve play a vital role in supporting people to make positive changes in their lives. Recent research across all four nations of the UK suggest that smaller and medium sized organisations are being particularly hard hit by the current economic challenges and voluntary organisations identify core funding as critical to their stability.

We are therefore launching a pilot core funding programme for smaller organisations working across our four programme areas (as outlined in our new grants strategy) which are:

Investing in children and young people to be ready for the future

Empowering women and girls to be free to lead the lives they choose

Improving the health and wellbeing of vulnerable and disadvantaged people

Building stronger communities in areas of disadvantage, deprivation and poverty

We will be looking for applications from organisations who play a vital role in their locality in the UK and can demonstrate how this funding will help strengthen their organisation. We'll also be exploring what support in addition to the grant itself is useful for strengthening the organisations we fund – this might include help with media and communications or sharing expertise.

Grants will be up to £20,000 for each of two years (maximum grant of £40,000). We anticipate that we’ll make approximately 100 grants initially, to a total value of £4 million.

Please note that as this programme is partly funded by HM Treasury’s “Tampon Tax” to support women’s and girls’ issues, we will be awarding grants to a minimum value of £1 million to organisations who are working primarily with women and girls.

Applications will open on 16th June 2016 and close midday on 27th July 2016.

Key questions to answer when submitting a bid will include:

What are the challenges you need to address in your organisation?

How will core funding from Comic Relief help you to address these issues?

What will change as a result?

Tell us how you play a significant role in your locality?

Please check back on our grants section(opens in new window) from 16th June 2016 for more details and to apply for funding.