Voluntary Action Lewisham

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation funds research and development in the UK. They aim to “understand the root causes of social problems, to identify ways of overcoming them, and to show how social needs can be met in practice.”

The Foundation works through inviting submissions to its calls for proposals. It is not a grant making trust and does not accept speculative applications for grant funding.

It currently has various calls for proposals on its website. Click here for further information.

The next deadline for the Department for International Development’s (DFID) Global Community Links grants is 1 November 2010.

The programme aims to develop the understanding of global development issues and funds community groups in the UK which have a link with a community group in a developing country. You must be a UK based community group in order to apply. Grants of £1,000 - £2,000 or £7,000 - £10,000 are available (smaller grants are for one-off activities, larger grants are for a series of related activities). Link groups need to be on the list of eligible counties which is available on the DFID website here.

For more information visit the DFID website here.

Patagonia, the clothing and outdoor gear company, has grants in the range of $3,000 - $8,000 available for small, grassroots, activist organisations which are doing environmental work. The next deadline is 30 September 2010, followed by deadlines at the end of February 2011 and the end of August 2011. Organisations in the UK can apply. You need to take an online eligibility test first.

For more information see the Patagonia website here.

Activity Grants and Transport Grants are available for Rotherham Tenants and Residents Associations (TARAs) from Rotherfed.

• Activity Grants are up to £500 and are to fund new TARA-led project activity. Funding is for revenue activities only and not to pay for equipment or travel. Grants can be for social, recreational or educational activities

• Transport Grants are up to £300 and can be used for TARA-led visits. Funding is for travel costs only to support new activities. Examples are funding to visit other groups in South Yorkshire, go to a regional conference or visit Northern College. Other examples are going to the theatre, sculpture park or going swimming.

The deadline for both grants is 15 October 2010.

For more information and application materials, see the Rotherfed website here.

The Arts Council has published a toolkit, a guide to working with MPs and a sample press release for arts organisations to use in helping to influence the Government’s forthcoming spending review. You can download the documents from the Arts Council website here.

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is running a pilot to provide internships for PhD students within a business or third sector organisation, to develop their user engagement and knowledge exchange skills and apply their research experience to business-led projects. Internships last from one to three months and could involve the student looking at areas such as:

• Marketing strategy
• Research and analysis
• Business Planning or evaluation
• Website design
• Database development.

The ESRC will fund around £8,000 per intern, with a contribution of up to £1,000 a month being required, up to a maximum of £3,000.

The deadline for host organisations to apply by is 30 October 2010. The deadline for students is 30 September 2010.

For more information see the ESRC website here.

Various Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust grant programme deadlines are approaching.

The Peace programme supports work which will advance peace and nonviolence. The Trust wishes to fund work which will influence the actions and thinking of the public and of people in positions of power.

Grants are also available through the Power and Responsibility programme for work which strengthens the democratic process, enhances corporate accountability and builds confidence in the way decisions are taken.

The Quaker Concerns programme funds work relating to the Religious Society of Friends.

The Racial Justice grants programme seeks to promote racial justice and equality of opportunity. This programme operates at three levels - West Yorkshire, nationally and at a European level.

The next deadline is 7 September 2010.

For more information, see the Trust’s website here.

The Directory of Social Change has started a series of interviews on good grantmaking, with some of Britain’s leading grant making trusts and foundations.

The first interview is with Lisa Suchet, Chief Executive of the Nationwide Foundation. You can view the article here.

The Baily Thomas Charitable Trust awards grants to organisations to support research into learning disability and to aid the care and relief of those affected by learning disability. The Trust funds work around severe learning difficulties and autism. It does not fund work focusing on mental illness or dyslexia.

Grants from £250 can be awarded for capital and revenue costs, including project and core costs.

Deadlines each year are 1 May and 1 October.

For more information see the Trust’s website here.

Further to our earlier posting about Community Grants in South Yorkshire, here is some additional information from Humber Learning Consortium about priority areas for these grants in Barnsley.

The grants are from £2,000 - £12,000 for small community groups and social enterprises with an annual turnover under £300,000, no more than nine full-time equivalent staff and not in receipt of direct ESF funding. The grants are to put on learning activities that move disadvantaged and hard-to-reach workless adults closer to the labour market.

There are two application deadlines - 10 September and 8 October. All monies must be spent by the end of November 2010, so the grants would be most suitable for bite-sized learning (short-courses/taster activities).

Applications from any hard-to-reach/deprived area in Barnsley are welcome but projects that work in or with the following communities are particularly welcome in this round:

Barnsley Sheffield Road/Worsbrough Common West

Cudworth Darfield Road

Goldthorpe Central/Goldthorpe South

Grimethorpe Central and Michaels Estate/Grimethorpe Red City and Hillside

Kendray West/Kendray Central - projects working in Kendray East and Stairfoot South and Kendray South also welcomed

Lundwood/Burton Grange

New Lodge

Town End/Longcar

Wombwell Copeland Road

Worsbrough Bridge

For more information please contact: Niall O´Reilly, Community Grants Project Leader - South Yorkshire, telephone: 0114 278 1316 or visit the Humber Learning Consortium website here.