Arts Council England Project Grants - Volunteering Futures

Grants are available to community and cultural organisations creating better voluteering opportunities for young people and others who experience social disadvantage across England.

Current Status
Open for Applications
Maximum value:
Discretionary
Objectives of Fund
Volunteering Futures aims to encourage cross sector collaboration and working closely with other community partners to help overcome barriers to participation.

Funding is intended to create more and better volunteering opportunities for people:

Who experience loneliness.
Who experience barriers to volunteering.
In areas where there are fewer volunteering opportunities.
Value Notes
There is a total funding pot of £4.7 million.

Grants of £100,001 or over are available. There is no maximum threshold.

Match Funding Restrictions
There is a flexible approach to match funding. Groups without match funding, or who have sourced less than 10% of their total project cost, will still be able to submit an Expression of Interest. The funders will take into account the difficulty in securing other funding at the moment when making decisions.

Who Can Apply
Community and cultural organisations in England may apply.

The funders are particularly interested in receiving applications from consortia led by a creative or cultural organisation and partnerships made up of a diverse range of organisations across arts and culture, heritage, sport and youth sectors.

Restrictions
The following are not eligible for funding:

Projects without a strong focus on volunteering.
Projects that do not consider how to improve access to volunteering roles for young people and those who experience barriers to volunteering.
Projects that use volunteering as a replacement for paid work.
Payment that supports lobbying or activity intended to influence Parliament, Government or political parties.
Using grants to petition for additional funding.
Input VAT reclaimable by Arts Council England from HMRC.
Payments for activities of a political or exclusively religious nature.
Goods or services that Arts Council England has a statutory duty to provide.
Payments reimbursed, or to be reimbursed, by other public or private sector grants.
Contributions in kind.
Depreciation, amortisation or impairment of fixed assets owned by Arts Council England.
The acquisition or improvement of fixed assets by Arts Council England (unless the grant is explicitly for capital use).
Interest payments (including service charge payments for finance leases).
Gifts.
Entertaining.
Statutory fines, criminal fines or penalties.
Liabilities incurred before the issues of this funding agreement.
Covering interest payments.
Purchasing buildings or land.
Eligible Expenditure
Projects should:

Seek to create or build on partnerships between arts and cultural organisations, heritage, sport and physical activity, youth and other community sectors.
Create significant numbers of volunteer opportunities in projects focused on creativity and culture.
Improve access to volunteering.
Support young people.
Support individuals who face barriers to volunteering.
Create a demonstrable, lasting benefit for participating groups and communities, especially those heavily impacted by the pandemic.
Explore, expand or scale innovation in volunteering practice that may have emerged during the pandemic. Examples might include:
Using digital technology for online recruitment, training and volunteering management and/or to offer new volunteering roles.
Using different, or more flexible formats of volunteering (such as micro-volunteering; ways to enable volunteers to offer their time more flexibly or to try out volunteering for the first time) to increase engagement.
Identifying and offering volunteering opportunities in communities where there is a lack of volunteering roles.
Involve the voice of volunteer participants in project planning and decision-making as well as delivery.
Consider supporting wider opportunities for participants to progress into other roles, further education, apprenticeships or employment in creativity and culture.
Consider the long-term sustainability of the activities and partnerships create.
Generate, and share good practice widely.
Grants can cover:

Staffing costs for both project management and management/coordination of volunteers.
Training and/or mentoring for volunteers.
Marketing costs, including documentation of project activities such as photography or film-making.
Planning, CRM upgrades or other relationship management systems.
Design, commissioning and hosting of online or digital resources, including websites or apps to support volunteer recruitment and engagement.
Reasonable equipment and materials costs.
Examples of eligible projects may include:

Organisations seeking to work nationally considering ways to create volunteering placements and collaborations in specific settings and/or for particular groups across the country.
Organisations working regionally to utilise volunteers to guide and signpost people who can benefit from wider community-level participatory activities and support, with the aim of enhancing and complementing wider projects and activities.
Bringing together partners to work very locally across a town or city, or specific postcodes or council wards, focusing on a particular theme or notable event to increase civic pride and offering targeted volunteering opportunities that use creativity and culture.
Projects should take place between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2024.

How To Apply
The application process is as follows:

Organisations should first complete an eligibility quiz before proceeding to the Expression of Interest.
Expressions of Interest will be accepted from 22 November to 7 December 2021.
Those who are successful will be invited by 20 December to submit a full application by 24 January 2022. Applications are to be made using Arts Council England’s online system, Grantium.

Full guidance notes can be found on the Arts Council England website below.

For more information visit https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/arts-council-national-lottery-project-grants/project-grants-time-limited-priorities#section-2