Awards for All

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Awards for All gives grants of £300–10,000 to support small-scale community based projects that promote arts and education, encourage healthier living, develop local sports, support heritage initiatives and boost community activities. Applications to the Awards for All programme can be made at any time.

Summarised from All Change for Awards for All article on Birmingham Local Development Agencies.

As of the 1 April 2009, a huge change to the very popular Awards for All programme means that organisations will now have to apply to Lottery Distributors separately for grants to support projects.

The very popular Awards for All programme, managed by Big Lottery Fund, is changing after a recent review. The scheme, jointly funded by Big Lottery Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund, Arts Council England and Sport England, will no longer be a one-stop-shop for small grants. From the 1 April 2009 each Lottery Distributor will fund small projects through their own small grants schemes to replace funding, which until now, has been accessible from Awards for All. The schemes now distributing this money, and to which you now need to apply for funding previously covered by Awards for All, will include:

  • Heritage Lottery Fund: have lowered the minimum grant level of their ‘Your Heritage’ (£3,000 to £50,000) and ‘Young Roots’ (£3,000 to £25,000) schemes to allow for smaller grants.
  • Big Lottery Fund: have a new small grants programme for local communities for grants between £300 and £10,000, but the emphasis of BIG is focused more on community development and cohesion rather than heritage and it is yet to be seen if they will consider funding projects that include an element of heritage even if the projects concentrate on their desired outcomes. For more information about their objectives see their website or call their hotline on 0845 4 10 20 30
  • Arts Council England/Wales/Northern Ireland: will make small grants between £1,000 and £100,000.
  • Scotland’s new £10.5m Awards for All scheme is jointly administered by the Big Lottery Fund, the Scottish Arts Council and Sportscotland and offers grants of between £500 and £10,000.

Please contact the above organisations for information on the specifics of the small grants schemes available for the different countries of the UK

Awards for All was originally set up 10 years ago to fill a gap for low level funding in the Lottery funding programmes that were available at the time. It has been very successful in providing an open-access, light touch application programme for small awards (£300–£10,000), targeted at the needs and aspirations of smaller and local community groups. The programme was set up as a joint-pot programme because, at the time, the Lottery Distributors did not feel they could address this need as efficiently and effectively through their own individual programmes.

Since then, things have moved on significantly. Lottery distributors have developed their own funding programmes, building on the learning from Awards for All, so that they are now able to address the needs of the constituency covered by the programme, both in terms of the types of applicant and the type of activity supported, and in the accessibility of the application and award process.

Consequently, with the agreement on Awards for All expiring at the end of March 2009, the Lottery Distributors decided to take this pot of money “in-house” and changes have been made to improve Lottery small grants provision as each Lottery distributor can better provide a programme tailored to their own target groups.

In the case the Heritage Lottery Fund they can provide a fuller service to applicants applying for heritage funding by dealing with them directly. Applicants will be able to access a wider band of funding, receive advice from regional teams before applying, access support from a mentor, and have the opportunity to apply online.

It means that applicants will now have separate and more tailored programmes of funding to apply to. Be that for community activity projects, sports, arts or heritage projects. For more information on what’s available see www.lotteryfunding.org.uk

See also Third Sector news article Lottery fund opens £58m grants programme