Colyer-Fergusson Charitable Trust recognises that a significant proportion of the people in UK prisons will have had chaotic and complicated lives: growing up in local authority care, excluded from school, living with drug or alcohol problems or struggling with mental health issues. After serving their sentences, many face the additional consequences of living with their criminal record. Whilst research indicates that most of them leaving prison wish to stop offending, the reoffending rates remain high with almost half reoffending within a year. Through the Gate will support organisations that work to break this cycle; helping offenders and their families move forward to build better lives, with real options for a meaningful and positive future within their communities.
Through the Gate will fund local organisations working in Kent and Medway prisons and national charities offering or planning to offer their services in prisons in the county. It will fund a wide range of work including, but not exclusively:
- family engagement – helping prisoners to stay in touch with their children and families
- pre- and post-prison release support in areas such as gaining employment and housing
- mentoring services – including peer mentors for people in the criminal justice system
- restorative justice and schemes that allow offenders to ‘give something back’
- move-on and half-way house provision.
Eligibility criteria
- Organisations must be a registered charity, CIC, social enterprise or properly constituted not-for-profit organisation with a management board of at least three unrelated members.
- Organisations must be working with people in custody or leaving custody, or their families, in Kent and Medway. Please note Kent does not include Greater London boroughs previously within the county.
- Funding to cover the core costs of an existing service should be able to provide robust evidence of the impact of their work.
- Organisations must have produced financial accounts for the last two years at least.
- Organisations must have a UK bank account in their registered name.
Level of funding available
Organisations can apply for either:
- a one-off grant of between £10,000 and £50,000
- a grant of between £20,000 and £75,000 payable over two or three years.
In certain circumstances we may make larger grants. Should you wish to apply for a larger sum, please write to our Chief Executive, Jacqueline Rae jrae@cfct.org.uk before submitting your application.
Please note – the total grant cannot be greater than 33% of your most recent annual turnover/income.
Extra priority
Extra priority will be given to organisations that:
- can provide robust evidence of the impact of their recent work
- clearly define the need they are addressing and why they are well-placed to do so
- demonstrate collaborative working and/or offer matched funding opportunities.
Exclusions
We regret that ordinarily we are not able to fund:
- individuals – unless they are made through our ‘Partner Grants’ programme.
- national or regional charities that are not operating directly in Kent or Medway prisons.
- 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
- 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. 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
- If you apply by the end of October you will usually receive a grant decision by early March
- if you apply by the end of February you will usually receive a grant decision by early July.
- if you apply by the end of June you will usually receive a grant decision by early November.
Please note: These are not strict deadlines. We receive a large number of applications and sometimes, if we have reached capacity, we may need to close an application window early. You may wish to apply well before the deadline, to avoid disappointment.
Decisions
We aim to inform applicants as soon as possible about the outcome of their application following the Trustees’ meeting. 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
