Reaching Communities England

The National Lottery Community Fund’s Reaching Communities England programme awards funding over £10,000 to organisations that work with their community to help them thrive. With the pandemic still ongoing, the NLCF wish to focus their giving on organisations supporting communities most adversely impacted by Covid-19.

They can support organisation’s to:

• continue to deliver activity, whether you’re supporting your existing users, responding to the immediate crisis or undertaking recovery activity

• change and adapt, becoming more resilient in order to respond to new and future challenges. In order to support communities to thrive, they aim to:

• build strong relationships in and across communities

• improve the places and spaces that matter to communities

-help more people to reach their potential, by supporting them at the earliest possible stage.

They can fund:

• direct costs associated with delivering activities in your community – this can include project staff, materials, equipment, room hire, volunteer expenses and project evaluations;

• organisational development – this can include business planning, testing new ways of working, staff training and development, developing governance and leadership, tech or IT upgrades/purchases, developing and sharing impact and learning, and increasing capacity to support collaboration and partnership working;

• core/fixed costs to support the day-to-day running of your organisation – this can include core salaries, rent, utilities, equipment; and

• the purchasing, refurbishing or developing of land and buildings. Deadline: Continuous rolling programme.

Who can apply

We're particularly interested in projects led by, or supporting people and communities who have been disproportionality affected by COVID 19. These include communities experiencing ethnic or racial inequity, discrimination or inequality, disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, and people who’re seeking asylum or who are refugees. We want to see more people across these communities represented in our funding.  

We can support a wide range of organisations and welcome applications from both larger and smaller organisations.

We can accept applications from consortiums or partnerships. In this case, a lead partner will need to take responsibility for the application process.

You can apply if you have a current grant from The National Lottery Community Fund. We’ll consider how this funding would complement and impact on existing awards during the assessment process. If there’s a high demand for this funding, we may need to prioritise organisations that do not already have grant funding from us.

Your organisation also needs to be one of the following:   

• registered charity   
• community interest company (CIC)
• Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) 
• community benefit society 
• co-operative society (if it has a not-for-profit clause and registered with the Financial Conduct Authority) 
• voluntary or community organisation   
• statutory body (including town, parish and community councils) 
• company limited by guarantee (if it has a not-for-profit clause or is a registered charity). 
• Board or committee members   It’s essential that organisations that apply have at least two people on their board or committee who are not related.

 By related, we mean: 

• married to each other 
• in a civil partnership with each other 
• in a long-term relationship with each other 
• living together at the same address  . related by blood.

We cannot accept applications from:

• individuals   
• sole traders   
• organisations focused on making profits and sharing these profits privately - including companies - - limited by shares, organisations without the right asset locks, or organisations that can pay profits to directors or shareholders
• organisations based outside the UK   
• applications made by one organisation on behalf of another   
• schools.