Who can apply?

Size of group or organisation

We support small, grassroots organisations. As a general rule, we will only consider an application from an organisation with a total annual income of under £500,000 per annum (this includes all income regardless of the source or purpose). However, occasionally a particular grant scheme may state in the fund guidance notes an application may be considered from a larger organisation.

If your turnover is over £500,000 you must contact us  (or call 01904 929500) if you intend to make an application. Your application will not be considered if you have not contacted us first.

Some of our funds have additional criteria around the size or type of organisation that they will fund so it is important that you also check eligibility by reading the guidance notes for the fund that you intend to apply to, to check for any additional criteria and exclusions.

Type of group or organisation

Your organisation or group must be not-for-profit and be working for public benefit. It does not have to be a charity registered with the Charity Commission but all groups applying to Two Ridings for funding do need to:

• Either be a small voluntary organisation, community group, small charity or other type of not-for-profit organisation, provided that the purpose of the grant is wholly charitable, such as  CIC or CBS (see our FAQs for additional requirements for CIC’s, Companies & CBS’s )
• Primarily for the benefit of people in North and East Yorkshire (see fund guidance notes for specific geography)
• Have a governing document (also known as a constitution, rules, memorandum, or articles of association) in the name of your organisation outlining your charitable objectives and including a charitable dissolution clause (with a named asset lock body for companies)
• Have a bank account in your group/organisation’s name with at least two authorising signatories, who are not related to one another
• Be locally led and run (including locally constituted and managed branches of national charities)
• Have at least three unrelated trustees, directors or management committee members.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Two Ridings is committed to equity, diversity and inclusion and ensuring an equity of access to all groups and organisations. We expect groups and organisations applying for grants to show that they are aware of equity, diversity and inclusion and can demonstrate commitment to them.

Who cannot apply?

Under normal circumstances (except where a particular scheme allows and there is sufficient wider public benefit), we cannot support:

• Private Businesses
• General appeals or sponsorship
• Work which has already started or taken place / retrospective funding
• National organisations (note this does not include locally constituted and managed branches of national or large charities)
• Work undertaken by or on behalf of statutory bodies as part of their statutory activities
• Work normally undertaken by infrastructure organisations
• Organisations that have substantial unrestricted funds (sometimes there may be a reasonable explanation for this and if you have any concerns that this might affect your application, please do contact us)
• Previous grant recipients who have outstanding reporting information
• Organisations that mainly give funds to other organisations or individuals

In addition, we cannot generally support (except where a particular scheme specifically allows):

• Work normally funded from statutory sources
• Work for the advancement of religion (faith groups can apply but must be able to demonstrate a wider community benefit)
• Activities solely for the benefit of animals
• Overseas holidays or trips
• Prize money
• Purchase of gifts
• Loans, deposits or on-granting
• Teacher or lecturer training
• Political campaigning or work of a political nature

Does your project meet the priorities of the fund you want to apply for?

We have a number of funds available, each with its own criteria and priorities for funding (the sort of project it is looking to support) and with different amounts available.

Consider the project that you are applying for and how well it meets the priorities for a particular fund. Some of our grant funds are specific to a particular area and you can search our interactive map to find a suitable grant by clicking on the area in which you are working or take a look at the full A-Z list of grants available.

Read the guidance notes!

Read the full downloadable guidance notes for the fund to double check you are eligible (remember some have additional criteria regarding organisation size). Check the area of benefit and the opening and closing dates to make sure the fund is open for applications.

Enter your email address into the registration page, an email will be sent with a link to your application form.

Check your junk email

Occasionally emails will be directed into junk folders so please check your junk email if you don’t receive this.

Click on the link in the email sent to you to start applying

Click on the link contained in this email to access your application form and start to complete the form. You can dip in and out of the application as much as you need prior to submitting the application. Click on save as draft when you leave the form to save your work. As a precaution, we recommend completing your answers in Word and cutting and pasting into your application form to ensure you have a backup if the form doesn’t save for any reason.

Check which documents you need to send with your application

There are always documents that need submitting with your grant application that support your application. Your application can not be processed with them. What documents needed will be outlined in your application form. These include:-

• Governing document (constitution/Articles of Association/set of rules)
• Most recent annual accounts or financial records (must show your organisation’s balance of funds, income and expenditure). If your financial records do not cover a full year, you will need to provide a set of management accounts and budget.
• Names, home addresses and phone numbers of your Chair and CEO (or equivalent)
• Equity and Diversity / Equal opportunities policy
• A bank statement in the name of the organisation (will be requested if your applications is successful). Click here for some guidance on your bank statement.
• Safeguarding policies if you are working with children or vulnerable adults

And may also include, depending on the nature of your project:-

• Organisational reference (for new applicants)
• Equal opportunities policy
• Job Descriptions for new posts that will be recruited as a result of the grant

If you are unable to attach supporting documents to your online application you can send them by post to Two Ridings Community Foundation, Pavilion 2000, Amy Johnson Way, Clifton Moor, York YO30 4XT or by email to grants@tworidingscf.org.uk.

Don’t miss the deadline

Once you are ready to submit your application, click on the submit button at the end of the application form. You will receive an automatic acknowledgement or there may be validation issues if any of the form has been completed incorrectly or any fields are missing.

These will need to be corrected /completed before the form can be submitted.

Make sure you submit it before the deadline. We cannot always accept late applications.

Our assessors are friendly and interested, they just want to know more!

All eligible applications will be assessed. One of our volunteer or in-house assessors may contact you to chat about your application to help us better understand your funding request. This may be over the telephone or online via Teams. All our assessors understand local grassroots organisations and the region.

Please make sure your main contact has a good understanding of the project and how it will work.

Where the fund has an Expression of Interest, we will contact all applicants who are invited to submit a full application.

Bringing your project to life

When assessing applications, we will look at the following:-

• How your group/activity is set up and managed
• How well are your finances managed
• Evidence of need for your project
• Your commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
• Value for money offered by the project
• How well the project meets the fund criteria and the priorities

Our panels are independent and include local knowledgeable people who care

Once your application has been assessed, information will be provided to the decision making panel. This usually meets a few weeks after the application deadline.

All eligible applications will be considered by the decision making panel. The final decision cannot be changed, and no discussion will be entered into, although we will try to provide constructive feedback if we can. In certain circumstances applicants will be awarded a pledge. This is the promise of a grant if/when certain conditions are met within a defined timescale.

There is no appeals process for grant awards. If an applicant feels dissatisfied with the outcome they can make a complaint and our complaints policy provides the detail of how to do this.

Successful or not, you will always hear from us

We will contact you via email to let you know the outcome of your application. If a grant is awarded it will look similar to this: http://tworidingscf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Conga-Sign-Email.png

There will usually be one of three outcomes:

• We award funding with no additional conditions
• We award funding with conditions
  These conditions may relate to actions that must be completed before the grant can be paid or they may relate to actions that must be completed by the end of the funding period. These will be outlined in the email that contains your grant offer. In either case, you will receive an email containing the details of your grant offer, accompanied by a grant acceptance form. Follow the steps in the email to accept the grant.
• If your application is unsuccessful
  We will offer feedback if we can.

We love to hear how your project went and we want to share your stories

As a condition of funding, we will expect you to provide an end of grant report when your project is complete or at the end of each year in the case of multi-year grants.

This is available as an online form very similar to the online application form and, should your application for funding be successful, the link to your end of grant report will be sent to you when your grant payment is made so that you can see what we expect in terms of reporting prior to accepting your grant award.

After your grant period, you will not be eligible to apply for further grants from this scheme until we have received this form, as it finalises your grant.

To help us better understand sector and group needs, we may contact you to arrange a learn and share visit. We only visit a small proportion of grantees and will contact you if required.

We are always very pleased to receive photos that we can use in publicity to promote our grants and help us raise your profile and additional funds to support grant making.

We will also require anonymised case studies/individual stories of change. This helps tell the human story behind the grants. We use these case studies with donors and funders to help them understand the difference that grant funding can make.

We love you to promote that you have been funded by Two Ridings, so putting our logo on your website and social media posts makes us happy. Tag us in your social media and we with try to reshare it to thousands around the region.