Big Lottery

Family Learning Programme

For areas: England
Open for applications: 19 September 2006
Application closing date: 29 August 2008
Minimum grant: £10,000
Maximum grant: £500,000
Total available: £40 million over three years

Big Lottery Fund has launched Family Learning, a programme that helps parents to understand more about how their children learn and encourages adults and children to learn as a family.

By "family" they mean at least one parent or adult carer and at least one child under the age of 16. They will only fund projects that involve adults and children learning together and deliver all three of the following changes:

• family members participate in and enjoy educational activity more
• family members have more skills and knowledge (these may include confidence and effective communication);
• parents and carers are better able to interact positively with their children and support them in learning.
  

They want to support families who face barriers to learning or who are not confident helping their children to learn. They are particularly interested in hearing from projects where learning is not based on getting a qualification and those that will help families who have not been involved in learning together before. They are looking for imaginative projects that meet local needs and remove the practical barriers to learning, for example, by providing travel costs, additional support for disabled participants, or childcare.

You can apply for grants of over £10,000 and up to £500,000, though we would expect the average grant to be between £100,000 - £150,000. We will fund projects for up to five years. You can apply on a local or national basis.

You can apply to Family Learning if you are:

• a registered charity
• a voluntary or community group
• a statutory body, including schools and children's centres
• a charitable or not-for-profit company
• a social enterprise
• a private sector organisation.

Statutory bodies and private sector organisations applying must involve a voluntary or community sector partner in planning and running the project.

If you have any questions about this programme, or you want an application pack and guidance notes, please call the Big Lottery Fund Advice Line on 0845 4 10 20 30 .

---

The Big Lottery Fund - Reaching Communities

For areas: England
Open for applications: 7 December 2005
Application closing date: See below for details
Minimum grant: £10,000
Maximum grant: £500, 000
Total available: £100 million - year one

Reaching Communities has proven to be a very popular and highly competitive programme. Competition for funds is very high, and difficult decisions have to be made, often resulting in very good projects not being funded.

Any new applicant should note the high levels of interest in this programme and consider whether your project is not better suited to another Big Lottery Fund programme.

Communities are at the heart of Reaching Communities. They want to fund projects that respond to needs identified by communities, and actively involve them. They want to fund projects that help those most in need including those people or groups who are hard to reach. They will give support to those projects we think best meet their communities' needs.

The three-year programme, launched on 7 December 2005, will make up to £100 million available in 2006-07, with future budgets being set annually.

Reaching Communities will give grants of more than £10,000 and up to £500,000, including a maximum of £50,000 for capital grants. They have set a maximum overall project size of £750,000 and £200,000 for the total capital element within a project. They will fund projects for up to five years.

They want to bring about the following changes as a result of our funding through this programme:

• people having better chances in life, including being able to get better access to training and development to improve their life skills
• strong communities, with more active citizens, working together to tackle their problems
• improved rural and urban environments, which communities are better able to access and enjoy
• healthier and more active people and communities.

You can apply to Reaching Communities if you are:

• a registered charity
• a voluntary or community group
• a statutory body, (including schools)
• a charitable or not-for-profit company
• a social enterprise – a business that is chiefly run for social objectives, whose profits are reinvested in the business rather than going to shareholders and owners.

If you have any queries about this programme, please contact the BIG Advice Line on 0845 4 10 20 30 where you can also obtain an application pack and guidance notes.

---

Children's Play programme

For areas: England
Open for applications: 28 March 2006
Application closing date: 10 September 2007
Minimum grant: Please see Local authority allocations
Maximum grant: Please see Local authority allocations
Total available: £155 Million

The Big Lottery Fund's £155 million Children's Play initiative is based on the recommendations of the 2004 play review Getting Serious About Play, which defines children's play as "what children and young people do when they follow their own ideas, in their own way and for their own reasons."

Their Children's Play initiative aims to:

• create, improve and develop children and young people's free local play spaces and opportunities throughout England, according to need
• support innovation and new ways of providing for children's play
• create a support and development infrastructure to ensure local agencies have the resources and skills to achieve the first two aims
• promote the long-term strategic and sustainable provision for play as a free public service to children
• ensure that local authorities work with other local stakeholders to develop children's play strategies and plans
• ensure that good, inclusive and accessible children's play services and facilities are provided locally.

Playful Ideas programme

For areas: England
Open for applications: 28th March
Closing date: 31 December 2007
Minimum Grant: £10,000
Maximum Grant: £250,000
Total Available: £16 million

The Playful Ideas programme will support projects that focus on innovation and new ways of providing for children's play. Projects seeking funding from this programme must display a creative and novel approach to addressing an identified need within the field of children's play.

The programme will be open to voluntary and community groups, the social enterprise sector, and town and parish councils.

They will make capital and revenue grants between £10,000 and £250,000 for projects lasting up to 5 years. They can pay for all or some of your projects costs.

If you have any queries about this programme, please contact the BIG Advice Line on 0845 4 10 20 30 where you can also obtain a Playful Ideas pack and guidance notes

Children's Play programme

This £124 million programme is open for applications. Each local authority area has been allocated an amount of money based on the child population of the area and weighted by the level of deprivation. Application packs have been sent to all local authorities asking them to coordinate their area's application with their local play partnerships.

There will be four rounds of applications with closing dates on 24 July 2006, 13 November 2006, 12 March 2007 and 10 September 2007. Full guidance of how to apply and what can be funded is provided with the application form. Applicants will be informed of the board's decision with three months of the closing date for the application round.

Organisations that have an interest in children's play should engage with their local authority as it reviews and develops a local play strategy and prepares its application. Local authorities are expected to consult and to use its play strategy as the basis for developing project proposals that meet local play needs. Applications are being invited from each local authority, comprising a portfolio of projects that reflect the joint interests of the local play partnership. They welcome contact in advance of the launch of the application process.

Each local authority has received notification from the BIG of the amount of funding that can be allocated for a portfolio of projects in its area.

As part of the application process local authorities will be asked to develop a local play strategy to address identified needs. The Children's Play Council have produced guidance on the production and implementation of play strategies. The guidance sets out the importance of, and recommended processes for, play partnerships.

---

Big Lottery Fund Infrastructure Funding for England - BASIS

The minimum grant is £10,001 and the maximum grant is £500,000 for projects within one England region The total available is £155m to be committed before March 31st 2009. Infrastructure services do vital work to help voluntary and community groups achieve their aims, through services such as training, providing information, representing community groups' interests, supporting networks and sharing good practice. The BASIS programme aims to improve the infrastructure support available to all voluntary and community sector organisations in England. You can apply to BASIS if you are a voluntary or community organisations whose main or only purpose is to support the work of other voluntary and community organisations. BASIS will not make grants to statutory organisations or to bodies whose primary purpose is to make a profit. You can apply for up to £500,000 for capital and revenue costs for projects lasting up to five years. If your project is working across England or across several regions, they will consider applications for larger amounts. They particularly want the programme to deal with the following key issues: helping organisations to increase the financial and other resources open to them, including through support in fundraising and financial management; improving knowledge and skills in organisational and project planning and management; helping organisations to have more influence on
local and national policies relevant to their work; supporting trustees and ensuring that organisations are run efficiently and accountably; promoting networking and sharing of knowledge and skills. In addition, they want infrastructure bodies themselves to be more financially stable, to provide more consistent support to others to achieve the outcomes listed above, and to be able to make contact with and support organisations that they have traditionally found hard to reach.

Further information is available on their Website: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/programmes/basis/index.htm

---