Community Investment Fund

This fund provides grants to key community groups focusing on the following 5 key areas:

-Securing a strong economic recovery from COVID-19, which protects jobs, incomes, and businesses and enable us to build a more inclusive economy -Protecting the most disadvantaged in our town by prioritising services and interventions that focus on prevention, alleviate the impact of poverty, and reduce health inequalities -Making Luton a child-friendly town, where our children and young people grow up feeling happy, healthy, and secure, with a voice that matters and the opportunities they need to thrive -Becoming a greener and more sustainable town, to meet our long-term ambition to be carbon neutral and climate resilient by 2040 -A strong and empowered community supporting fairness, equality, and local pride and speaking with a powerful voice

Applicants applying for this fund will need to demonstrate that the services they are intending to provide will meet the priority outcomes of the LLAL CIF themes. We would strongly recommend that you speak with the Foundation team before applying on 01525 306 690

This fund is open for applications from:

We are only able to consider applications from not-for-profit constituted groups that have clear charitable aims

• Registered UK charities • Constituted Community groups • Companies Limited by Guarantee with clear charitable aims and without share capital • Community Interest Companies Limited by Guarantee without share capital • Social Enterprises

If you are applying in partnership or as part of a consortium the organisation that submits the bid will be known as the lead organisation and must be an eligible entity from the list above, this organisation will manage the funds and the outcome monitoring if successful. The lead organisation should have a signed partnership agreement with all organisations who are partners in the consortium.

Funding to Community Interest Companies and other non-charities will include conditions to restrict funding to charitable objectives/activities only.

Successful and unsuccessful organisations from any previous rounds are welcome to apply again, should they meet the objectives and priorities for the fund. Applications for continuation funding will be considered, those applicants should be able to demonstrate the impact the previous grant had and highlight challenges and learning.

In order to be considered for funding, an organisation should be able to demonstrate the following:

• That the activity undertaken directly contributes to the achievement of this policy’s objective and priority outcomes, and to support this assertion by evidence of need and examples of outcomes achieved. • That it has the capacity, knowledge, skills and resources to deliver its activities effectively. • That it is properly constituted according to its form, and is effectively governed and managed with, wherever appropriate, user involvement or participation in the planning, development and management of the organisation and its activities. • That it is properly financially managed, in good financial health, and not holding an amount of unrestricted funds that is disproportionately high in relation to annual expenditure. • That it is committed to the promotion of equality, cohesion, and inclusion both within its client group and across the community as a whole, and that this is demonstrated through the way it plans and delivers its activities. • That its estimate of the funding required to deliver its activities is realistic and reasonable and represents good value for money. • That it has an effective complaints policy, procedure or mechanism. • That, where it deals with children, young people and vulnerable adults, it has an effective safeguarding policy in place, and that the governing body, staff are thoroughly and regularly trained and monitored to ensure compliance. • That it has a track record of partnership working, wherever appropriate, with others working in the same, similar or complementary field of activity. • That it recognises that it cannot expect continual funding from LLAL, and that it has a track record of, wherever possible, seeking funds from different sources, has made efforts to become sustainable, and has a clear exit strategy for dealing with a situation where funding stops.