Infrastructure funding: capacity building and representation
Funding theme: Building a robust civil society
This funding programme closed to new applications on Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Grant details
- Area: Greater London
- Open to: No longer open to new applications
- Deadline: Noon on Tuesday, 8 October 2024
- Funding length: Up to five years
- Funding size: There is no minimum or maximum limit to how much we will give, however we never give revenue funding exceeding 50% of the applicants turnover/income in any one year
- Average award: Based on grants made to date, we have awarded between £24,000 and £500,000, the average award size has been £184,000*
*These figures are illustrative and we will award more or less than these amounts depending on the applications we receive. You can find out more about our approach to funding here.
Funding closed to new applications
Having committed exceptional levels of funding to London’s charitable sector until 2026, we closed our rolling grants programmes to new applications on Tuesday, 8 October 2024 for one year. This will allow us to manage our existing grants and pre-closure applications, while reviewing and developing our new funding policy, launching in autumn 2025.
Funding closed to new applicationsThis following text is archived and no longer represents an active funding programme
What we fund
We want to fund organisations and initiatives delivering quality capacity-building services and/or voice, representation and advocacy support to the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors.
We believe that a thriving, vibrant, vocal, and collaborative civil society is essential for London to flourish and underpins our mission to reduce inequality and grow stronger, more resilient and thriving communities.
To achieve this, we also believe the sector needs access to high-quality support that helps sustainability and provides civil society with voice and representation.
Funding is available to second-tier and infrastructure organisations, and for infrastructure initiatives and services setting out to provide high-quality support to wider networks of London frontline voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations that will help them in the delivery of their work.
We are keen to fund work that sets out to increase the sector’s:
sustainability: including adaptability, resilience, effectiveness and collaboration
voice and representation: especially where it increases users’ influence on decision-making
involvement of communities
impact: in terms of improved outcomes and better access to community facilities and services for Londoners
We are particularly keen to support organisations working with and/or led by groups that have historically faced barriers in terms of receiving an equitable share of the funding, resources, and other support available.
We can fund:
voice, representation and advocacy work that an organisation provides on behalf of their membership and / or a network
- activity to improve members’ and /or a network’s capacity in or approaches towards a specific area. This may include, but is not restricted to, one or more of the below:
governance
fundraising
marketing, media, communications
digital capacity building
business planning, operational issues, or service delivery
monitoring, evaluation and impact management
diversity, equity and inclusion
climate change
managing people (including paid staff and volunteers), resources (financial and non-financial) and/or buildings
networks, networking, partnerships, collaboration, peer-to-peer support
co-production
This is not an exhaustive list, you can apply to us for funding for other activities that will support the sector.
Funding staff costs
We will not usually pay for staff costs beyond one full-time equivalent staff post. For example, we could pay for one full-time staff member, or two part-time staff, both working 17.5 hours a week. We will only fund staff posts that are paid the London Living Wage or above.