Colyer-Fergusson Charitable Trust believes that small, locally focused organisations are often best placed to deliver flexible, responsive, direct support to the most vulnerable people in society. It also recognises that, at a time of rising demand for services, smaller organisations have been particularly hard hit by funding cuts and the move to contacts and tender-based funding.
In response, the Trust is offering its Community Fund. Funding is available to support grassroots organisations at the heart of communities all over Kent and Medway, to help them become more sustainable. Funding can be used for revenue and capital costs, for example helping groups to run services, distribute resources to vulnerable people, cover core costs, train staff and volunteers and generally become more efficient and effective. This is our most flexible and swift funding stream.
The Trust is interested to hear from smaller organisations in Kent and Medway delivering essential services to the most vulnerable people in the community. Organisations should be working at grass roots level across a wide range of activities, where a relatively small amount of money can make a big difference. Successful applicants will need to provide evidence of the impact of their recent work and provide tangible outcome targets for the grant they are seeking.
Eligibility criteria
- Organisations must be a registered charity, CIC, social enterprise or other properly constituted not-for-profit organisation with a management committee with at least three unrelated members.
- Organisations must be based in Kent or Medway and benefit local communities. Please note Greater London boroughs, previously within Kent, are not eligible.
- Organisations must have financial accounts for at least the last two years.
- Gross income in the last financial year must be £500,000 or less. If your income is slightly higher than this, please contact us as we may be able to offer some flexibility.
- Free reserves in the last financial year must be less than twelve months of expenditure
- Organisations must have a UK bank account in their registered name.
Level of funding available
Organisations can apply for a one-off grant of between £500 and £10,000.
Please note that under this programme the Trust will not normally make a grant for more than 50% of an organisation’s most recent turnover/income.
Extra priority
Extra priority will be given to groups that:
- work in a particularly disadvantaged or deprived area.
- have limited access to other sources of income.
- clearly define the need they are addressing.
- demonstrate a commitment to service user involvement.
- illustrate how they aim to deliver social outcomes.
- can demonstrate partnership working.
Exclusions
We regret that we are not able to fund:
- organisations with recent turnover/income in excess of £500,000
- individuals – unless they are made through our ‘Partner Grants’ programme
- national charities that do not have a physical base in Kent or Medway
- capital appeals where the requested grant would be less than 25% of the total cost
- statutory bodies and anything deemed to be the responsibility of the State including state-run nurseries, schools and colleges
- hospitals, health authorities, medical care, medical equipment or medical research
- academic research, scholarships or bursaries
- animal charities
- the promotion of religion
- heritage projects including the restoration or conservation of buildings
- annual or one-off events and festivals
- work outside of Kent or Medway
- endowment appeals
- work that has already taken place i.e. retrospective funding
- round-robin, widely circulated appeals.
Living Wage
The Trust encourages grant applicants to cost all salaries included in their application at the living wage rate. The current living wage rate can be found on the Living Wage website: www.livingwage.org.uk
How to Apply
All applications must be submitted using the Trust’s online application form. The link is at the bottom of this page. Applicants are advised to download a copy of the application form questions and prepare their answers in advance in Word and cut and paste them into the online form.
Please note that you will be asked to provide:
- your published accounts for the most recent financial year
- a budget in Excel or as a Word table, showing specifically what the grant would pay for
- your organisation’s safe-guarding policy
- evidence of your not-for-profit tax status g. a copy of your constitution and asset lock if applicable, if you are not a registered charity.
When to Apply
There are no deadlines and decisions are made on a rolling basis. We aim to process applications for £3,000 or less within six weeks. Larger sums can take up to sixteen weeks.
Decisions
We aim to inform applicants as soon as possible about the outcome of their application. Unfortunately, the Trust receives many more applications than it can fund and therefore many good proposals, will be turned down. The trustees and their staff regret that they are not able to enter into lengthy correspondence about the reasons for their decisions.
If you have a question that is not answered in this guidance, please email grantadmin@cfct.org.uk
Download the questions to prepare your application in advance
Apply online using our online application form
