The open call is for the Southwest Durham area only please see the list below of locations this in this area.
Billy Row, Bishop Auckland, Coundon, Crook, Escomb, Howden Le Wear, Hunwick, Leeholme, Sunnybrook, Tindle Crescent, Stanhope Frosterley, West Auckland, St. Helens, Willington, and Wolsingham
We accept applications from not-for-profit groups including Registered and exempt charities, Community groups, Schools, Social enterprises, Voluntary groups, Community Interest Companies, Town, Parish or Community Councils and Faith groups/venues.
Unfortunately, we are unable to accept applications from Individuals, Party political groups, Private companies, or ‘for-profit’ organisations and those whose objectives and ethos do not meet believe housing’s charitable objectives.
Your group/organisation needs to have a group bank account (not in an individual person’s name), with two unrelated signatories, as well as a signed constitution or relevant governing document.
We would expect that a proportion of beneficiaries are believe housing customers as our grants are funded using money from our tenants. How are you involving our tenants and how would you develop this? It is good practice to identify how many believe housing customers you currently have involved in your project, if relevant.
Applicants can apply for funds of £10,000. The total grant allocation for this open call is £20,000.
When considering our grant, please read the following criteria carefully
- Tackling inequalities as a result of the rising cost of living.
- Health and wellbeing: improving mental and physical health, as well as building the confidence of individuals.
- Employability and training: including volunteering and other upskilling activities.
- Increasing household income: activities including debt and benefit advice, feeding families, and employing people.
- A greener, fairer future: by reducing, reusing, and recycling.
- A definitive start date that allows enough time for the appraisal and approval process to be completed before the project starts. (Usually 8-10 weeks after the grant closing date.)
- The length of the grant will be between 9 months to 1 year.
- What activities or services will the funding help to achieve, what you are wanting to do, where and when will it happen and who will take part?
- If the core funding is to support a new service. Have you found a gap in services for the people you support? Have people come to you asking for this support? Do you work with other organisations who will direct people towards your activity? How do you know people will access your project?
- Full costings, these should be detailed and give us an idea of how you have calculated these costs. For example, staff costs should show the hourly rate for the member of staff and the number of hours they will be working.
- Any relevant match funding information.
- What are your milestones? These are the key stages in your services/activities and could be planning, marketing and publicity, purchase of resources, delivery of events, recruitment of volunteers etc.
- Targets. How many people will benefit from the activities/services that will take place because of the core funding? Targets should be specific and outline how often an activity takes place – for example, we deliver weekly craft activities over 40 weeks, 25 people attend overall with an average weekly attendance of 10-12 people.
- Outcomes – What are the benefits of the core funding? What are the outcomes of the core funding? Do your outcomes reflect our priority themes?
- The project will need to take place in areas believe housing operates in, please see locations listed above.
After the expression of interest form is submitted, we will send a link to make a full application to groups that are successful at this stage.
Full applications will be assessed, and successful groups will be invited to present at a grant panel.
If your organisation is funded what happens next :
Our Core Costs funding can be spent on your organisation’s central day-to-day operations. These might include, for example:
- Management costs – we would consider a maximum of 10% of the overall cost.
- General office expenses.
- Accountancy and audit.
- Communications and outreach.
- Monitoring, evaluation, and learning.
- Items that are purchased on behalf of another organisation
- Applications to develop the financial reserves of the organisation
- Religious, party political or lobbying activities (non-religious and multi-faith activities may be funded)
- Loans or debt repayments
- Capital costs
- Maintenance costs
- Utility costs.
If your application is successful, we will contact you to advise you of this and to arrange a start-up meeting.
You will then receive an agreement letter which is a contractual agreement between your organisation and believe housing for the project delivery.
- a copy of the organisation’s bank statement dated within the last three months,
- relevant paying in bank details (name of bank, account name, sort code, account number and business address),
- policies and procedures that will support your project. For example, safeguarding, equality and diversity, health and safety etc,
- Supply a set of accounts that cover the most recent 12-month operating period.
- a copy of your signed constitution or relevant document.
Once initial checks have been carried out, we will visit you to hold a start-up meeting. This is where we will discuss the details of the project including publicity and quarterly reporting requirements, these include:
- evidence that the purpose for which the grant was awarded was achieved, including a written update detailing progress against targets, milestones, and outcomes. This should also include case studies and photos where possible.
- records of attendance
- data from participant surveys (the details of the survey will be agreed at your start-up meeting)
- a detailed statement of expenditure including receipts and/or evidence of spend e.g. invoices or staff wages claim form.
- Grant funding will be paid via BACS in instalments.
- Management costs – we would consider a maximum of 10% of the overall cost of project.
- Volunteer coordinator.
- Centre manger.
- Admin for a project.
- Equipment /materials – we would consider a maximum of 30% – of the overall cost to help with delivery of a service /activity.
- Rent costs – we would consider a maximum of 50% of the overall cost of the service or activity.
- Travel to for an outreach worker up to £1000.
- Staff training.