Small Grants

To be eligible to apply for this funding, please make sure your organisation meets the criteria outlined below. If you are not sure if you are eligible, please do get in touch.

Organisation purpose:

Your organisation provides free social welfare legal advice.

Location:

Your organisation is based, or operates in London. If you have multiple branches or sites, you need to be able to explain how the funding will be used for your London location specifically.

Delivery style:

Your organisation offers face to face advice as part of your services.

Type of organisation:

Your organisation is a:

• Registered, exempt or excepted charity  

• Charitable incorporated organisation (CIO)  

or 

• CIC limited by guarantee (with a minimum of three Directors and an asset lock in your constitution – note that CICs limited by shares are NOT eligible)

Organisational structure:

You have at least three Trustees, Directors or Management Committee members who are not related to each other.

Please note that meeting the eligibility criteria is not a guarantee of securing funding. Please see our ‘shortlisting criteria’ below for further details of the priorities for the grant round.

Shortlisting criteria  

We anticipate that there will be a larger number of applications than we are able to fund. The decision-makers will therefore be assessing applications that can demonstrate strengths in a significant number of the following areas:   

• A clear understanding of how the proposed solution would address a security issue or safety concern. 

• Clear demonstration of how the funding would be used for safeguarding life and property, preventing suffering or severe inconvenience, or reducing the risk of further disorder in the future. 

• Knowledge and experience of providing social welfare legal advice to communities. 

 We will also: 

• Consider the geographical spread of grants (as far as possible).  

• Balance funding across multiple areas of social welfare advice, with particular focus on immigration and asylum advice. 

• Priority will be given to agencies with less than 6 months of reserves. 

• Priority will be given to agencies directly affected by the riots of summer 2024. 

What can the funding be used for? 

Capital Costs. The intention is that funding will be spent on, or in connection with; safeguarding life or property, preventing suffering or severe inconvenience, or reducing the risk of further disorder in the future. To be considered Capital grant, spending needs to meet these criteria: 

1. There must be a probable future economic benefit – this is the positive impact and advantages that the asset is expected to bring to the grant recipients/society. This can be interpreted widely (doesn’t have to be monetary), but it does have to have future ‘value’ to someone. And it must be over the longer term (= more than 1 year).  
2. It must be building or improving on something, not just maintaining. Funding should not be used for routine maintenance of standard equipment. Spending on enhancing or upgrading an existing capital asset is treated as capital, but routine maintenance and repairs are not. 
3. The asset should be used for more than 1 period (year) 
4. You must be able to measure (or estimate) cost – this is the actual amount of money spent on an asset, or amount of funding granted. This cost includes not just the purchase price but also any other costs directly connected to making the asset ready for use. Estimates can be used if needed. 
5. Intangible assets also count (but not licenses). These can be things like IT systems or intellectual property, provided they have a value/benefit to us, and are in use for more than one year. That typically rules out licenses which are annual costs rather than a long-lasting benefit.