Created last summer, the UK Fund has been a significant commitment to the National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF) new strategy ‘It Starts with Community’ which aims to tackle social issues facing UK communities.

In its first year, the UK Fund focused on supporting communities to connect in ways that better fit changing lives.

A year on, NLCF is increasing the focus and investment in creating lasting change for children and young people as part of its community-led mission to support communities to help children and young people thrive.

Grants of between £500,000 and £5 million are available for not-for-profit projects that run for 2 to 10 years.

The funding is intended to increase the impact of what is already being done.

Projects need to:

Benefit communities across the UK (by working in different locations, or by sharing learning between countries).
Scale up their impact by expanding their work (by helping more people, or doing more for people they already work with).
Support people experiencing poverty, disadvantage, and discrimination.
Help make significant changes to services or systems that affect people’s everyday lives.

Projects must also meet at least one of the following aims:

Improve relationships between people with different life experiences.
Help people and communities who find it difficult to meet face-to-face to make meaningful connections online.
Help people from all backgrounds to influence the future of their communities.
Help children and young people facing specific challenges change the systems that affect them.
Help more organisations to involve and listen to children and young people.

NLCF is holding three webinars giving further details about the recent updates to the fund:

Registration for the webinars is required and can be done through the NLCF website.

Registered charities, constituted voluntary and community organisations, companies limited by guarantee, CICs, CIOs, community benefit societies, co-operative societies, statutory bodies and partnerships can apply for funding.

Grant applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

For more information, please visit The UK Fund | The National Lottery Community Fund (tnlcommunityfund.org.uk)