The National Lottery (TNL) Community Fund Scotland has announced their current funding programmes will remain open for an extra 18 – 24 months, though they will be adapted as needed.

They were due to pause and redevelop their funding offer this year, as it reached the end of its 5 year cycle. This has changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the National Lottery Community Fund believes it is important to ensure third sector organisations can access their funds, to support them to respond and recover from the impact of the pandemic.

By remaining open for applications, they hope they can better support the third sector through COVID-19 and recovery.

Some grants and funding will remain unchanged, while others will be adapted to be more focused on recovery, with shorter grants and quicker turnarounds.

Headlines:

the National Lottery Awards for All and Young Start funds will remain open and unchanged
the Improving Lives grants remain open, but will be shorter, quicker to access, and will fund a wider range of work focused on recovery from COVID-19
- from Thursday 1^st October, the maximum grant will be £200,000, from on year up to 3 years, with a single stage application.
Community-Led Activity grants remain open; the team are reviewing these now to make sure they are relevant to the current situation, and will make any changes before the end of 2020.
COVID-19 responses are still prioritised across all funds, but they remain open to non-COVID-19 related work too
apart from the review and amendments highlighted here, there will be no other large-scale changes to our main grants until at least 2022

Please see below for all fund updates, including links and deadlines:

Improving Lives Grants

The Improving Lives grants remain open, but will be shorter, quicker to access, and will fund a wider range of work focused on recovery from COVID-19. From Thursday 1^st October, the maximum Improving Lives grant will be £200,000, from on year up to 3 years, with a single stage application.

The deadline for funding applications of more than £200,000, or for a period of more than 3 years, is 12pm on Wednesday 30^th September.

The team are reaching out to organisations they think will be affected by this change, but encourage organisations to get in touch if the team can help support someone they are working with.

Before the end of 2020, TNL Community Fund Scotland intends to review and adapt the priorities for the Improving Lives grants, to make them more relevant to the current situation. These priorities are in development, but the team plans for these to expand the types of work they can currently fund rather than replace them.

Community-Led Activity Grants

Community-Led Activity grants remain open; the team are reviewing these now to make sure they are relevant to the current situation, and will make any changes before the end of 2020.

The plan is to increase the maximum grant to £200,000.

Young Start

As more youth services reopen across Scotland, the team are interested in hearing from youth-led projects which could benefit from the Young Start funding.

Grants of up to £100,000 can be used for any work designed and led by young people aged 8 – 24 years old, and which aims to improve their wellbeing, and help them become better connected or more enterprising.

For further information, or to request support regarding any of the details above, please contact the team by email: CentralScotland@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk

Alternatively, visit the TNL Community Fund website.