England

Guide for applicants

Awards for All programme in England guidance notes
Stock code: BIG-A4AENG02
Print: Belmont Press
Photography: Rob Baker Ashton, Peter Devlin, Brian Morrison, Robert Rathbone
Design: Graphicsi Ltd
Further copies available from:
Phone: 0845 4 10 20 30
Textphone: 0845 6 02 16 59
Email: [email protected]
Our website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Accessibility
Please contact us to discuss any specific communications needs you may have.

Our equality principles

Promoting accessibility; valuing cultural diversity; promoting participation; promoting
equality of opportunity; promoting inclusive communities; reducing disadvantage and
exclusion. Please visit our website for more information.

We care about the environment

The Big Lottery Fund seeks to minimise its negative environmental impact and only uses
proper sustainable resources.

Our mission
We are committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of
people most in need.

Our values
We have identified three values that underpin our work: being supportive and helpful,
making best use of Lottery money and using knowledge and evidence. You can find out
more about us, our values and the funding programmes we run by visiting our website
www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

The Big Lottery Fund is committed to valuing diversity and promoting equality of
opportunity, both as a grantmaker and employer. The Big Lottery Fund will aim to adopt
an inclusive approach to ensure grant applicants and recipients, stakeholders, job
applicants and employees are treated fairly.

Big Lottery Fund, May 2011

Contents

The application process 4

Awards for All and the Big Lottery Fund 6
Who can apply? 7
What will we pay for? 9
How we assess applications 11
What happens if we offer you a grant? 14
What we will ask you to send us 15
If your application is unsuccessful 17
Data protection and Freedom of Information 17
Help and advice 18

This guide has been designed to help you when applying to

the Awards for All programme.
We update our programmes from time to time, so if you have had this guide for
more than three months, contact us or visit our website to check that you have
the most up to date version. We published this version in May 2011.
This guide is for applications to Awards for All in England. There are separate
Awards for All programmes in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. You can
find out about these by visiting our website or calling our advice line.
Call us with any questions you may have on 0845 4 10 20 30 or email us at
[email protected] or visit our website at
www.awardsforall.org.uk/england
The application process

Read this guide

This guide will enable you to understand if we are able to fund your organisation and project,
and will help you complete the application form. It also provides information on how we
assess your application, and what happens next if you are successful.

Complete your application form

Send your application to us at least three months before your project is due to start. We will
only consider one application from your organisation at a time. If you are a current grant holder
you need to have satisfactorily met all our grant monitoring requirements before applying again.
We will acknowledge receipt of your application within five working days of it being received.
If your application is not complete it will be returned to you and you will have 10 working days
to send us the missing information.

We assess your application

We aim to have a decision to you within 30 working days of receiving a complete
application. We may need to contact you during this time.

We tell you our decision

If your application is successful you will have 20 working days from the date of our
conditional offer letter to accept our terms and conditions, and to provide the supporting
documentation described in the What we will ask you to send us section of this guide.
If you do not do this we will withdraw our conditional grant offer. If your
application is unsuccessful, we will write to you
and tell you why.

4
 We check your supporting documents
We check what you send us and contact you within 10 working days.
If the documents are satisfactory we will write to you confirming the grant, which
bank/building society it will be paid into and when. We will also announce it to the
press and media.
If the documents are not satisfactory or we require further information, we will contact you
if we think this is something you can resolve. If there is a major problem or something that
cannot be resolved, we will withdraw our conditional grant offer and tell
you the reasons why.

Start your project

You can start your project once you receive our letter confirming the grant.

Finishing your project

You must complete your project within 12 months of the date of our letter confirming the
grant. You will be asked to complete an end of grant report telling us how the grant has been
spent and what was achieved.
We may visit or telephone you, or ask to see original receipts to check how the
grant was spent.

5
Awards for All and the
Big Lottery Fund

The Big Lottery Fund is responsible for distributing some of the money raised by the National Lottery for good causes.
Awards for All is our small grants programme which aims to help improve local communities and the lives of
people most in need.

Is Awards for All right for you?

Do you need between 300 and 10,000? (the Awards for All programme will
not give more than 10,000, in one or more grants, to an organisation in any
one year period)
Are you a voluntary or community organisation, school, health body or a
parish or town council?
Do you have a UK-based bank account in the name of your organisation
(or for schools, a local authority bank account) and financial procedures, that
both require at least two people who are unrelated and do not live at the same
address to sign cheques or make a withdrawal (including debit card or
internet purchases and cash withdrawals)?
Will your project be complete within one year and can you send your
application at least three months before your project starts?
If you answered yes to all these questions, then Awards for All could be
right for you.
If you are an individual or sole trader, profit-making organisation, statutory
organisation (other than those listed above) or an organisation not established
in the UK, then the Awards for All programme is unable to fund you.

Important information for arts, sports and heritage projects

Until March 2009 we ran Awards for All with other organisations which
distribute lottery funds. There are now separate programmes for arts, sport
and heritage projects delivered by the Arts Council, Sport England and
Heritage Fund respectively.
This change means that Awards for All will not fund applications where the
main purpose of the project falls within the scope of the programmes run by
the other lottery distributors.
Awards for All will only pay for projects related to the arts, sports or heritage
activities where the main purpose of the project meets one or more of the
outcomes on page 11 of this guide which are about improving communities,
skills, health or the environment.
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Who can apply?

You can apply to Awards for All England if you are a: We are unlikely to fund organisations that are in poor
financial health or those that have had a previous grant
voluntary and community organisation
from us which has not been managed satisfactorily.
school
parish or town council
The organisation filling in the form must be the same
organisation that will receive the grant and manage the
health body.
project. We will not consider an application made by
one organisation on behalf of another.

Voluntary and community organisations

Voluntary and community companies that are not-for-profit
organisations are also known as third
unincorporated, not-for-profit
sector organisations, as they are
associations.
separate from the public and private
sectors. They are value-led To apply to Awards for All voluntary
organisations established for social and community organisations must
purposes rather than the pursuit of have:
profit and they reinvest surpluses to
a written governing document (for
help tackle issues facing people and
example, a constitution, set of rules
the planet.
or trust deed)
They include:
at least three unrelated people on
registered and unregistered their governing body, management
charities committee or board of directors.
co-operatives We expect organisations with a
membership to be open to all and allow
friendly societies
anyone to join, unless there is a good
industrial and provident societies reason why this is not appropriate.

Applications from schools

We welcome applications from schools but we will not pay for activities or
services that schools have a statutory responsibility to provide for example,
curriculum based activities, or any activity taking place during curriculum
time. We expect projects to take place before or after school, during lunchtime
or in the holidays unless you can provide us with a good reason in your
application why this is not possible.

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Health bodies
These include: NHS Hospital Trusts
Primary Care Trusts Foundation Hospitals.

Applications from branches of other organisations

Independent branches of larger organisations can apply directly to us. They
must have their own governing document and be allowed to manage funds and
staff without referring to another body.
Dependent branches can also apply directly to us if they:
have their own governing document (or have adopted the parent
organisations governing document); and
produce their own annual accounts (which may be included in the parent
organisations annual report); and
have their own bank or building society account and are responsible for this
account and how the funds in it are spent.
If we offer a dependent branch a grant, we will ask the parent organisation to
accept overall responsibility for it.
For other dependent branches where there is less local control, the parent
organisation will need to apply. If you are a branch and you are unsure
whether you can apply, please contact us.

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What will we pay for?

You can apply for between 300 and 10,000 to pay loans or interest payments
for some or all of your project costs. The Awards for All ongoing staff costs (including salaries of permanent
programme will not give more than 10,000 (in one or or fixed term staff)
more grants) to an organisation in any one year period. political or religious activities
There are some things we are unable to pay for and projects or activities that the state has a legal
these are shown below. obligation to provide
What cant we fund? projects that you cannot maintain because of high
ongoing costs or the need for specialist skills
activities that happen or start before we confirm
projects that cannot be completed within 12 months
our grant
of the date of the letter confirming the grant
any costs you incur when putting together your
purchase of alcohol
application
routine repairs and maintenance
any expenditure incurred or committed before we
confirm our grant (including deposits) used vehicles
day-to-day running costs of your organisation (for VAT that you can recover
example, utility bills, council tax, rent, insurance) projects where the main purpose is to increase
contingency costs participation in sports, arts or heritage.
endowments (to provide a source of income)
existing activities and repeat or regular events,
including those we have funded before (unless it is
more than three years since those activities or
events took place, or they have been developed, for
example they are going to be run with new
beneficiary types or in a new area)
feasibility studies for building projects that will cost
more than 25,000 (including VAT)
fundraising activities for your organisation or others
items that mainly benefit individuals (for example
equipment that is not shared)
items that are purchased on behalf of another
organisation
land, building, refurbishment, landscaping or property
projects (including playgrounds and temporary
buildings) costing more than 25,000 (including VAT)
land or building projects where the ownership or
lease is not yet in place (including any planning
permissions)

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 Funding for your project
from other sources
If your project costs are more than
you are requesting from Awards for
All and you need to raise funds from
other sources, you must be able to show
that this will not delay your project.

VAT
You may need to pay VAT on
purchases you make as part of your
project. You must only include VAT
in the amount you request from us if
you cannot claim it back from HM
Revenue and Customs. If you later
find that you can recover VAT that
we have included in our grant, you
must repay this amount to us.

Land and buildings

Projects involving work on land or a
building (including refurbishment)
can be complicated and take time to
complete. We need to be sure that
you can complete your project within
12 months of the date of the letter
confirming the grant.
So if you need planning permission,
you must have it before you apply. You
also need to own the freehold of the
land or building, or hold a lease that
cannot be ended by the landlord for
at least five years. This should also
be in place before applying to us.

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How we assess
applications

Complete applications The Awards for All outcomes

If we receive an incomplete application, this will be Below are the four Awards for All outcomes. Our outcomes
returned to you, which could cause a delay to your are the differences we want our funding to make. During
application. You will be given 10 working days to send our assessment we will consider how well your project
us the missing information. Some helpful tips on meets our outcomes. You must show how your project
completing the form are listed below: meets at least one of them to be considered for a grant.
the main and senior contacts should be different u People have better chances in life with better
people and the senior contact must be in an access to training and development to improve life skills.
appropriate position as outlined in the help notes u Stronger communities with more active citizens
beside question eight working together to tackle issues within the community.
the date of birth must be completed for each contact u Improved rural and urban environments which
home addresses must be provided for contacts communities are able to better access and enjoy.
(unless you are a school, health body, parish or town u Healthier and more active people and
council) communities.
each contact should provide a landline telephone
During our assessment we will look at the following
number
factors to help us reach a decision:
question six on accounts should be fully completed.
If you are a new organisation which has been running the need for your project
for less than 15 months, you should provide a who will benefit
projection of your income and expenditure and how you will achieve our outcomes
include the amount you are requesting from us if we have funded you before
the budget table in question 13 should be completed your organisations income
in full, including totals and the amount you are
the total project cost.
requesting from us.
At times we find we do not have enough funds to
We will aim to have a decision to you within 30 working
support all the applications we would like to. When this
days of receiving a complete application.
happens we need to make some difficult decisions. We
have a scoring system which helps us do this. More
points are given to applications that:
show strong evidence of need
seek to involve as wide a range of people as possible
meet more of our outcomes
are from organisations that Awards for All has not
funded before
are from organisations with a smaller annual income
are for smaller projects.
We aim to assess each application equally and fairly and
our team meets regularly to discuss their assessments.
Our managers approve the final decisions.

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12
Policies and Insurances

Projects working with children, young people or

vulnerable adults
If you are applying for a project to work with children, young people or
vulnerable adults, you must have a policy that explains how you will make sure
they will be safe. It is your responsibility to have acceptable safeguarding
policies and procedures in place which we may ask to inspect at any time if we
offer you a grant.
The NSPCC has produced a guide for organisations to safeguard children called
Firstcheck. You can find out more at www.nspcc.org.uk or you can buy a copy
by calling 020 7825 7422.

Insurance and safety

Depending on the type of project, you may need public liability insurance or
qualified leaders. It is your responsibility to ensure you have adequate
insurance in place.
This should include cover for any assets you buy or events and activities you
run using our grant. We may ask to look at these policies at any time.
Your organisation must be affiliated to a governing body if your project
involves a dangerous sport or activity.

Equal opportunities
We expect projects to be open to all who want to be involved, unless you can give a
good reason why this should not be the case.
If you plan to restrict who can take part you should explain why in your
application, so that we can consider whether this is acceptable.
Your application should show your commitment to our equality principles,
which are explained in our Equality Matters guide. You can get this from our
website or advice line.

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What happens if we
offer you a grant?

If we offer you a grant we need you to confirm what

you told us in your application before we will pay the Applying again
grant to you. This means that our grant offer is
conditional on you and a senior contact from your Once you have spent your grant and
organisation signing and returning our offer letter, we have approved your end of grant
accepting our terms and conditions of grant and sending report you can apply again. We want
us documents that allow us to check how your our funding to help lots of groups, so
organisation is run.
the Awards for All programme will
You must return everything we have asked for within not give more than a total of
20 working days from the date of our offer letter, 10,000 (in one or more grants) to
otherwise we will withdraw our conditional grant offer an organisation in any one year
(although we may agree a short extension if you
contact us before our deadline and there is a good
period. We work this out using the
reason). You cannot start your project until we have date we confirmed our grant. This
received, checked and approved the signed offer letter includes dependent branches. Your
and any other additional documents we may ask for. organisation as a whole (parent
Confirming our grant organisation and dependent
branches) cannot receive more than
If everything you send us meets our requirements we 10,000 in any one year period.
will write to you within 10 working days of receiving it,
telling you when we will pay the grant and when you If you have already received funding
can announce it to the press and media. You can then from Awards for All and are unsure
start your project. whether you can apply again or how
Withdrawing our offer much you can apply for, please
If what you send is unsatisfactory we will contact you if contact us to check before you apply.
we think you may be able to resolve the problem. If You also need to satisfactorily
there is a major problem or something that cannot be complete all grant monitoring
resolved, we will withdraw our conditional grant offer requirements before applying again.
and write to you telling you the reasons why. You can
send us a new application but before you do, you must We consider each application on its
address the reason why we withdrew our grant offer. merits, so there is no guarantee that we
We will assess any new application on its merits, in will make another grant to the same
competition with others, so it may not be successful. organisation. We are unlikely to fund
Monitoring your grant the same thing twice so you need to
If we fund your project we will need you to complete an
show that you are doing something
end of grant report to confirm how the grant has been different, or making an important
spent and what you achieved. Please make sure that new development, compared with the
you get receipts for all the items or services you buy previous application. Our scoring
with the grant and that you keep them somewhere safe takes into account whether we have
as we may ask you to provide them. We may also visit funded your organisation recently, so
you to check how the grant has been spent. your chances of receiving another grant
Please keep us up to date if your project or any of your may be lower, unless your application
contact details change at any stage of your grant. is stronger in other areas.

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What we will ask you
to send us

Before you apply, make sure you can provide the u We may contact you to ask for details of an
following information if we make a conditional grant independent referee, someone independent of your
offer. Please do not send it with your application. organisation but who knows its work well. If we need
an independent referee, we will explain our
We will confirm what we need from you in our offer
requirements when we contact you.
letter and will include a checklist. You cannot start your
project until we have received, checked and approved Parish or town councils
everything we ask for. What we will ask for depends on
u We will need an original bank (or building society)
the type of organisation you are.
statement that is not more than three months old, or
Voluntary and community organisations a copy of the most recent page from your building
society passbook that is stamped and certified by
u We will need a copy of your organisations latest
them as a true copy of the original.
approved annual accounts, signed and dated by your
chair, secretary or treasurer and by your auditor or u We may ask you to send a copy of your latest
independent examiner, where appropriate. If your accounts or audit report.
organisation has been running for less than 15 Schools
months, you may not be able to give us this so in
these cases we will accept a 12-month financial u If your school has its own bank or building society
projection for the year when you will spend the grant. account we will need an original statement that is not
more than three months old, or a copy of the most
u We will send you a Bank or building society details
recent page from your building society passbook that
form. You will need to ask your bank or building
is stamped and certified by them as a true copy of
society to complete it, to verify your account. Your
the original.
bank may charge you a small amount for this, which
you cannot reclaim from us. u If your school uses a local authority bank or building
society account we will need a letter signed by a
u We will need three consecutive pages of original
senior officer in the local authority with details of the
bank (or building society) statements. Depending on
account the grant will be paid into and confirmation
the number of transactions, these may cover one,
that our grant will only be used for the project
two or three months but the most recent page you
described in your application.
send must be less than three months old. If you use a
building society passbook, we will need copies of Health bodies
three consecutive pages from your passbook, which
u We will need a letter signed by a senior officer from
have been certified by your building society with a
your organisation with details of the bank or building
stamp and signature as true copies of the original.
society account the grant will be paid into and
The pages you send must include your most recent
confirmation that our grant will only be used for the
transactions and your account details.
project described in the application.
u Unless you are a registered charity or a company
limited by guarantee (or a registered charity that is We have published a separate guide to accepting a
also a company limited by guarantee) we will need a conditional grant offer that explains these
copy of your organisations governing document, requirements in more detail. You can get this from
constitution or set of rules. our website or advice line. Please read it before you
u If you are a branch of a larger organisation that has apply, to check that you will be able to send us
management and financial control over your work we everything we need.
will need a letter, signed by a senior officer from the
larger organisation, confirming their support for your
application and accepting overall responsibility for it.

15
Our bank or building society account requirements
You must have a UK-based bank or building society account in the name of the
organisation that submits the application to us and will carry out the project.
We require at least two people to sign each cheque or make a withdrawal
(including debit card or internet purchases and cash withdrawals).
If any signatories are related or live at the same address we need written
confirmation from your bank or building society that these people cannot
authorise payments together.
If you are a school, a local authority bank or building society account is
also acceptable.
We may ask you to open a new and separate account that will only be used for
our funding. If you have had a Big Lottery Fund grant before and we asked
you to set up a separate account, you must also use this account for an Awards
for All grant.

Internet bank or building society accounts

If your organisation uses an internet account we still need original, paper
statements. You will need to ask your bank or building society to send these to
you, as we will not accept downloaded versions.
We will also require at least two people to authorise a payment. If any of the
people who can authorise a payment are related or live at the same address we
will need written confirmation from your bank or building society that they
cannot authorise the same payments.

New organisations
If your organisation has been running for less than three months we will need
all the original statements you have received from your bank or building
society (or certified copies of all the pages from your building society passbook
that have transactions on them).
We will also need an original letter from your bank or building society showing
your account details and when the account was opened.

16
If your application Data Protection and
is unsuccessful Freedom of Information

We consider all applications in competition with each Data protection

other and we know that you will be disappointed if we
decide not to offer you a grant. We will use the information you give us during
assessment and during the life of your grant (if awarded)
If your application is not successful we will write to you to administer and analyse grants and for our own
telling you the reasons why. Please consider our reasons research purposes. We may give copies of all or some of
carefully before deciding whether to apply again. this information to individuals and organisations we
Since we seldom have enough funds to support all the consult when assessing applications, administering the
applications we would like to, if you send us the same programme, monitoring grants and evaluating funding
application again our experience is that it is also likely to processes and impacts. These organisations may include
be unsuccessful. accountants, external evaluators and other organisations
or groups involved in delivering the project.
Your time may be better spent seeking funds from
other sources. We suggest you only apply again for the We may share information with organisations and
same project if you can make a much stronger case. individuals with a legitimate interest in Lottery
applications and grants or specific funding programmes.
We have a duty to protect public funds and for that
reason we may also share information with other
Lottery distributors, government departments,
organisations providing matched funding or for the
prevention and detection of crime.
Customer care We might use personal information provided by you in
We aim to be efficient, polite and order to conduct appropriate identity checks. Personal
supportive in everything we do. information that you provide may be disclosed to a
credit reference or fraud prevention agency, which may
If you think we have treated you keep a record of that information.
unfairly, made mistakes or given
We might use the data you provide for research
you the wrong advice, we have a purposes. We recognise the need to maintain the
complaints procedure. You can get confidentiality of vulnerable groups and their details will
this from our website or advice line. not be made public in any way, except as required by law.
You may be disappointed if we turn Freedom of Information
down your application but you The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives members
cannot use the complaints of the public the right to request any information that
procedure to appeal against our we hold. This includes information received from third
decision if we have followed our parties, such as, although not limited to, grant
process correctly. applicants, grant holders, contractors and people
making a complaint. If information is requested under
Making a complaint will not affect the Freedom of Information Act we will release it,
your chances of getting a grant subject to exemptions, although we may consult with
from us and it will not affect the you first. If you think that information you are providing
level of service you receive. may be exempt from release if requested, you should let
us know when you apply.

17
Help and advice

You may have questions about how to apply or plan Help with governing documents
your project. There are many sources of help and advice.
A governing document sets out in writing how an
Call us with any questions you may have on organisation works. It may be called a number of things,
0845 4 10 20 30 or email us at such as a constitution, set of rules or trust deed. It
[email protected] or visit our explains what your organisation is set up to do and how
website at www.awardsforall.org.uk/england it does it.
If you have a hearing impairment you can contact us We need to be sure that the organisations we fund
using a textphone on 0845 6 02 16 59. are set up properly and able to manage a grant.
We work with a range of organisations that may be able Considering an organisations governing document is
to help you with your application or your organisations one way we do this.
governing document. These include Councils for Voluntary Schools, health bodies and town or parish councils are
Service, Rural Community Councils and local authorities. statutory bodies, while registered charities and
Here are some organisations and websites that you companies are regulated, so we do not need to see their
might find helpful. governing documents.

You can find your local Council for Voluntary Service on However, we need to check other organisations
the National Association for Voluntary and Community governing documents to make sure we can fund them.
Action (NAVCA) website www.navca.org.uk/liodir If we offer you a conditional grant and then find we cannot
ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England) has a fund your organisation, we will have to withdraw our
list of Rural Community Councils on its website. offer. So if you are a new voluntary or community group,
www.acre.org.uk/Resources/useful-links/ or have not applied to us before, we recommend you think
useful-links-rcan about whether you may need some help and advice on
writing your governing document before you apply.
Your local authority may have a Lottery officer or
funding team that can help you. Contact details for all We have published a Good governance guide, which
local authorities are on the Direct Gov website at: explains why the way you run your organisation is
www.direct.gov.uk/en/Dl1/Directories/Localcouncils important to us. You can get this from our website or
advice line.
You may also find contact details for these organisations
in your phonebook.
Businesses that offer help
Some businesses promote their services by telling
potential customers about Awards for All. They may
offer consultancy services or imply that they are acting
on our behalf. They might even offer to help you fill in
the form if you pay them a fee or deposit.
Please note that our application process is free and we
do not think any paid help is necessary.
We do not act with or endorse the services of any supplier
or consultant and will not pay any costs, commission or
fees that they may charge you to make an application.
You must complete the form yourself and apply
directly to us.

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