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Support for groups assessing grant applications

Some of our groups have recently been asking for help to assess grant applications. This might be because they don’t have enough volunteers to form a grants panel, or because someone who’s part of the Coordinating Team needs a grant but is worried about their privacy.

In the past, groups would have sent these applications to the National Grants Team to consider. But, last year, the decision was made to pause national grants as a part of the restructure. So, we no longer have a central Grants Team, and we don’t have the capacity for staff to consider applications on behalf of groups.

We’ll be working with groups to explore possible solutions to this situation. In the meantime, we’d like to suggest that some of our groups could work together on grant giving. So, if you have the funds to offer a grant, but can’t assess an application, you could ask another local group that is experienced in considering grants to assess the application for you.

How do I find another group who can help?

The Volunteer Support Team can give you details of groups that are local to you, so that you can get in touch to find out if they're able to help. At the moment, we can’t tell you which groups will be in a position to help, but we’ll be building up this information so that we can help link groups up going forwards.

If you’re a group with experience of considering grants, and feel you can offer this support to other groups, please let the Volunteer Support Team know, so that we can start building this information. You can contact the Volunteer Support Team on 0300 500 8084 (option #3) or via [email protected].

If your group receives a grant request which you can’t assess, and none of your local groups are able to help, please let the person know that you can’t consider an application at the moment. You can signpost them to Turn 2 Us or their helpline 0808 802 2000 (open 9am – 5.30pm Monday to Friday) to complete a grants search for other funders.

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