Who can apply?
Applicants must be not-for-profit organisations. This includes properly constituted voluntary or community groups, registered charities or social enterprises. Organisational eligibility guidance on this can be found here. The work of your organisation must be benefiting Lambeth residents or if you do not yet work in Lambeth, you should be keen to replicate in Lambeth projects that have been successful elsewhere with our target groups. If you are considering applying for work in schools, please refer to the schools-based projects guidance.
The Walcot Foundation is a Living Wage Funder and we seek to ensure that all posts which are wholly or partially funded by us pay the Living Wage, unless there are particular reasons for this not to happen. Organisations do not need to be registered Living Wage employers to apply to the Foundation but we do encourage organisations to consider whether this is a possibility for them.
Grant size
We offer grants up to £30,000 per year for up to three years. The Foundation will consider providing up to 100% of reasonable project costs and encourage full cost recovery as part of the project budget. A project is considered more favourably if the applicant organisation can make a contribution, either from its own resources or from funds raised elsewhere.
Types of projects
We exist exclusively for the benefit of Lambeth individuals from low-income households. Our grants to organisations and schools are solely a means of reaching those individuals. Our grants are targeted at specific individuals or groups of individuals that meet our criteria as opposed to, for example, whole-school or whole-community projects.
We are interested in applications that provide opportunities for Lambeth residents who face entrenched disadvantage and fit with one (or more) of our current priorities.
1. Supporting families under pressure
Empowering families to deal with the problems that are preventing them from thriving, such as poor housing, debt, benefits issues and difficulties in supporting their children’s education. This could involve funding advice projects or family support workers.
2. Improving engagement with education
Enabling pupils who are disengaged from education to achieve academically and/or vocationally, including projects that focus on the transition years or that work with students at risk of exclusion.
3. Building better mental health for children and young people.
Early intervention projects that help improve mental health and give children and young people effective coping skills for the future.
4. Increasing confidence and skills through positive activities.
Giving school-age children who would otherwise be prevented due to low-income the ability to take part in activities and experiences that build confidence and new skills. We support projects that specifically target and meet the needs of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
5. Tackling youth unemployment
We support projects that are working with young people who have significant additional barriers to employment.
When reviewing which community-based projects to fund, we are more likely to consider funding projects that fulfil the following criteria:
Safeguarding
The Foundation is fully committed to the safeguarding of groups who are vulnerable to abuse. It is our policy to require organisations we fund to have in place formal safeguarding policies and procedures and, additionally, a whistle-blowing policy and procedure. The Foundation will report any informed suspicions to the appropriate authorities without delay.
What we do NOT fund
Applicants must be not-for-profit organisations. This includes properly constituted voluntary or community groups, registered charities or social enterprises. Organisational eligibility guidance on this can be found here. The work of your organisation must be benefiting Lambeth residents or if you do not yet work in Lambeth, you should be keen to replicate in Lambeth projects that have been successful elsewhere with our target groups. If you are considering applying for work in schools, please refer to the schools-based projects guidance.
The Walcot Foundation is a Living Wage Funder and we seek to ensure that all posts which are wholly or partially funded by us pay the Living Wage, unless there are particular reasons for this not to happen. Organisations do not need to be registered Living Wage employers to apply to the Foundation but we do encourage organisations to consider whether this is a possibility for them.
Grant size
We offer grants up to £30,000 per year for up to three years. The Foundation will consider providing up to 100% of reasonable project costs and encourage full cost recovery as part of the project budget. A project is considered more favourably if the applicant organisation can make a contribution, either from its own resources or from funds raised elsewhere.
Types of projects
We exist exclusively for the benefit of Lambeth individuals from low-income households. Our grants to organisations and schools are solely a means of reaching those individuals. Our grants are targeted at specific individuals or groups of individuals that meet our criteria as opposed to, for example, whole-school or whole-community projects.
We are interested in applications that provide opportunities for Lambeth residents who face entrenched disadvantage and fit with one (or more) of our current priorities.
1. Supporting families under pressure
Empowering families to deal with the problems that are preventing them from thriving, such as poor housing, debt, benefits issues and difficulties in supporting their children’s education. This could involve funding advice projects or family support workers.
2. Improving engagement with education
Enabling pupils who are disengaged from education to achieve academically and/or vocationally, including projects that focus on the transition years or that work with students at risk of exclusion.
3. Building better mental health for children and young people.
Early intervention projects that help improve mental health and give children and young people effective coping skills for the future.
4. Increasing confidence and skills through positive activities.
Giving school-age children who would otherwise be prevented due to low-income the ability to take part in activities and experiences that build confidence and new skills. We support projects that specifically target and meet the needs of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
5. Tackling youth unemployment
We support projects that are working with young people who have significant additional barriers to employment.
When reviewing which community-based projects to fund, we are more likely to consider funding projects that fulfil the following criteria:
- The capacity to track your clients/service users over time (even after they have left the project) is a 'plus', as is the possibility of working intensively with a particular client group.
- Ability to trace our grants to specific individuals – Lambeth residents demonstrably facing financial poverty - and to understand how the funded service or intervention has enabled them to move forward along the path towards financial self-sufficiency (or not).
- Ability to verify that those clients/service users benefiting from our grant are Lambeth residents who face entrenched disadvantage.
Safeguarding
The Foundation is fully committed to the safeguarding of groups who are vulnerable to abuse. It is our policy to require organisations we fund to have in place formal safeguarding policies and procedures and, additionally, a whistle-blowing policy and procedure. The Foundation will report any informed suspicions to the appropriate authorities without delay.
What we do NOT fund
- anything which in our view is the responsibility of central or local government, or of schools themselves
- organisations that cannot show they are working with Lambeth residents who are in financial need
- debt repayments
- capital projects
- crisis funding to solve an organisation's financial problems
- organisations with less than 3 trustees or directors