Volunteering Futures Fund: invitation for grant makers
DCMS invites applications from grant makers to administer up to £1.7m funding on volunteering projects in 2021/22 and welcomes additional match funding to 2023.
Applies to England
Documents
About the fund
The Government is launching a new Volunteering Futures Fund. The fund aims to support high quality volunteering opportunities for young people and those who experience barriers to volunteering in DCMS sectors and across the Voluntary and Community sector. It aims to test and trial solutions to known barriers through the use of informal, micro, flexible and digital approaches.
The core objective of the fund is to support young people and people who experience barriers to volunteering, to build their skills, well-being and social networks through volunteering.
Further objectives are:
- To create better and more volunteering opportunities for people:
- in deprived communities,
- who are often or always lonely,
- who experience other barriers to volunteering.
- To create better and more opportunities for volunteering in DCMS sectors with the most demand for new and young volunteers namely, art, culture, heritage, sport and youth.
- To learn about the comparative effectiveness of different volunteering models (eg. flexible, micro, informal and digital volunteering opportunities) and recruitment approaches for engaging and sustaining volunteers.
- To leverage additional investment towards volunteering initiatives through a match funding challenge.
There are two delivery strands for this fund as follows:
- for arts, culture heritage and sport initiatives involving volunteers.
- for community and youth initiatives involving volunteers.
This invitation is for grant making organisations to apply for up to £1.7m of match funding to deliver the strand “for community and youth initiatives involving volunteers” only.
It is seeking applications from grant making organisations such as charitable foundations and philanthropic institutions. Applicants must be able to bring matched funding on a basis of 1:1.
A complementary strand of the fund will be delivered by an Arms Length Body to focus on supporting volunteering initiatives in arts, culture, heritage and sport sectors.
Eligibility
DCMS is inviting grant making organisations such as charitable foundations and philanthropic institutions to apply for funding.
The criteria are:
- Applicants can request a minimum of £300,000 and maximum of £1.7m of DCMS funding
- Applicants must be able to bring matched funding on a basis of 1:1. Applicants must contribute a minimum of £300,000 in matched funding
- The Volunteering Futures Fund will commence from October 2021 and end by 31 March 2023. All DCMS funded activities must have taken place and the expenditure incurred by onward grantees by 31 March 2022 i.e. onward grantees must have completed DCMS funded activities by 31 March 2022
- Successful applicants can use their match funds to support onward grantees up until 31 March 2023 when this programme will end. i.e. onward grantees must have completed match funded activities by 31 March 2023
- The value of the grant requested must not represent more than 50% of the applicant organisation or consortium’s combined annual income for the financial year. Requests of more than 25% of annual income will be subject to additional financial due diligence
- Only activities in England are eligible for funding
- Applicants will be subject to comprehensive due diligence reviews. Successful applicants will also be responsible for due diligence on onward grantees
- Applicants and their onward grantees must comply with the independent process evaluation and feasibility study. This will include sharing a survey with participating volunteers involved in funded activity
Detailed guidance and notes on eligibility of organisations can be found in the application form above.
Applications must be submitted by midnight on Sunday 26th September to volunteering-futures-fund@dcms.gov.uk. Enquiries about the fund should also be directed to this address.
We aim to inform successful applicants by mid-late October 2021. We expect the grant agreement to be finalised with successful applicants shortly after that. Any changes to this timeline will be communicated on this page.
Last updated 17 September 2021 + show all updates
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Application form and guidance document - clarification notes have been added to the guidance section on 17th September in response to queries received about the fund.
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First published.