Small Grants Programme

Making a good application

We want to fund excellent organisations and people, where activities improve the lives of others.

We have designed our application form to only ask for what we need in order to gather a clear picture of your work. On reading your application, we should understand –

• How you have identified that you are operating in an area of deprivation
• What need you are aiming to address in your local community
• What difference you make in people’s lives and how you do it
• How you know you are making a difference (evidenced outcomes)

We are looking for organisations that –

• Understand the needs of their local community
• Are open and transparent about their work and finances
• Work in partnership with others

Why do we ask for your Safeguarding Policy?

Your safeguarding policy tells us how your organisation keeps your beneficiaries, staff, and volunteers safe. We expect your approach and processes to be proportional and if you are providing 1 to 1 services or working with children/ vulnerable members of the community, we would expect your policy to be publicly available and to include:

• appropriate, current legislation
• clear steps on what to do if a risk is identified, with relevant leadership and trustee contact details
• whistleblowing guidance
• details of safer recruitment practices
• signature and date, with a scheduled review date (ideally annually)

For further guidance, please see the NSPCC Safeguarding Assessment Tool and NSPCC’s guidance on writing safeguarding policies and practices

Process

The Small Grants Committee will meet on ten occasions throughout the year, to support timely decisions. An application window will open a few weeks before each meeting and will close when 45 applications have been received.

Please ensure you work on your form offline, using the offline version of our application form. If you have started an online application form and then find that we’ve reached our maximum applications, you will not be able to access this form again so please work online and copy answers over to ensure no answers are lost.

45 APPLICATIONS PER ROUND

Applications can only be submitted via the online form, which will become available on the day the round opens and will close when we have reached maximum submissions.

An offline version of the form is available here and you can access our recommended budget template here.   

We will view your accounts on the Charity Commission website. If your latest public accounts are over one year old, please upload a copy of your draft accounts with your online application.

You will receive a notification of your submission by email (please check spam/ junk folders for email from charityapp@leathersellers.co.uk), and we will inform you of the outcome of your application within one month.

FAQs

• Do you fund CIC’s or not-for-profit organisations?
• We fund charities (CIO’s) who are registered with the Charity Commission. We recognise the different regulation and financial reporting the different structures are subject to, but our current focus is on supporting charities rather than social enterprises (which the CIC structure is designed to enable).
• Do Leathersellers’ Charitable Fund only fund organisations in London?
  No, we support registered charities working within and for the benefit of individuals and communities across the UK.
• If we are successful, when will our grant start?
  If you are awarded a grant, we will send you a grant offer email detailing the terms and conditions of the grant and asking you to complete an acceptance form. Once you have completed the form, we will process the payment. The date the payment is sent signals the start of your grant.
• What reporting is expected?
  We do not expect any reports from recipients of small grants.
• When can I reapply for funding?
  If you have received a small grant from the Leathersellers’ previously, you must wait 12 months from the offer date before you may reapply at this time. This also applies to rejection dates and any subsequent applications.
• Can I request feedback if my application is unsuccessful?
  Unfortunately, as we only have a small Grants team at the Leathersellers it is not possible currently for us to provide feedback to all applicants.
• Our Safeguarding Policy is not available on our website – can we send it in an email?
  We can only support charities that follow excellent safeguarding practices, as demonstrated in the first instance by an accessible policy and clear processes. For further information, please visit the gov.uk website or read the NSPCC’s guidance on writing safeguarding policies and practices.