Reaching Communities England

Shantona

With this funding we’ll help strengthen communities and improve lives across England. Our funding is available to all communities. But our priority is the places, people and communities that need it most.

By ‘community’ we mean people living in the same area. Or people with similar interests or life experiences, even if they do not live in the same area.

Our priorities are to fund projects that:

  • support places, people or communities experiencing poverty, disadvantage or discrimination
    and
  • support people and communities to shape the decisions that affect their lives.

And your project must achieve one of our missions. Which are to support communities to:

  • Come together, through inclusive places, spaces and activities (either physical or virtual). Especially for communities where people are least able to come together.
  • Help children and young people thrive, by developing positive social and emotional skills.
  • Be healthier, by addressing health inequalities. And helping prevent poor health.
  • Be environmentally sustainable. By engaging with climate issues and having a positive environmental impact. And improving access to quality natural spaces.

We’re more likely to fund work that achieves one or two of these missions really well. For more see our priorities.

Funding starts at £20,001. But most applications we fund are for less than £500,000 in total. We can fund many different types and sizes of work. See what you can spend the money on.

After our updates to Reaching Communities on 1 April we expect continued high demand. This means you currently have a lower chance of getting funding than usual.

Area
England
Suitable for
Voluntary or community organisations
Funding size
£20,001 or more, for up to 5 years
Application deadline

Ongoing

Apply

How to apply

Apply online Continue online application

You can see a full list of questions from the application form.

If you need help, or have any communication needs

We want to help make sure you can access this funding. And we’re happy to talk about other ways for you to tell us about your application.

You can:

If you’re already working on a Reaching Communities application, you can also email the team in your area.

We’re working on making our guidance and application forms available in more formats. But you can contact us and request particular formats too. Or we can pay for things like BSL interpreters to help you apply.

If you need another way to apply

You can email us instead of using the online form, and:

  • tell us what you want to do in writing
    or
  • send us a link to a video or audio recording about what you want to do.

We have teams that cover different parts of England. You should email the team in your area.

For what to cover in your email or video see how to tell us about your Reaching Communities application in a video or audio recording.

What to tell us in your application

We’ll ask about your organisation and the work you want us to fund. Including:

  • what you'd like to do
  • how this work will achieve one of our missions
  • who your work will benefit. Particularly how you’ll support people, places or communities experiencing poverty, disadvantage or discrimination
  • how your project supports people and communities to shape the decisions that affect their lives. And how you’ll empower them to control things that are important to them
  • why you’re the right organisation or partnership to do this work.

You can see a full list of questions from the online application form.

How long it takes to get funding

On average it takes around 9 months to get funding.

Some applications can take a lot less time. For example if you are asking for smaller amounts of funding.

Some may take longer. Such as applications that are larger and more complex, or for building work.

There are 2 stages to our application process. It can take:

  • up to 4 months to get your decision at the first stage, from when you submit your application
  • up to 6 months to send us extra information and get your decision at the second stage.

We’ll discuss the timings for your application if we take it to the second stage.

What happens after you send us your application

  • We'll email to let you know we got your application.
  • We’ll assess your application. We may ask for more information before we can make a decision.
  • We'll let you know if we want to take your application to the second stage. If we do not take your application further, we'll give you feedback explaining why.
  • If we take your application further, we'll contact you for more details. We'll talk to you and agree the best way to get all the information we need. For more see “what we’ll ask if we take your application further” near the end of the section on our priorities.
  • We make our final decision. We'll let you know if we’re going to fund your application or not. If not, we'll give you feedback explaining why.

What happens after we give you the funding

Find out what to expect, and what you’ll need to do next, by reading our guidance on managing funding over £20,001.

Our terms and conditions

Read our funding terms and conditions.

See how we use the personal data you give us

By reading our data protection statement.

We do checks on the information you give us

As an organisation that gives out public funds, we carry out some checks on the information you give to us. Learn more about our checks.

British Sign Language (BSL) video - how to apply

Watch BSL interpretation of how to apply to Reaching Communities: