How projects are assessed

Our Fund is overseen by an independent Community Fund Panel, made up of our customers, who review our applications and ultimately decide where our money should go.

Application internal review

Before applications are taken to the Panel, there are a number of things our internal team will need to do first:

Do a final eligibility check to make sure you can apply for the Fund
Carry out due diligence checks
Internal scoring and comments
Get subject matter expert advice when necessary

If your application passes our internal review and is a good fit for our criteria, your application will then be taken to the Community Fund Customer Panel who review the applications on a monthly or quarterly basis, depending on which funding pot you’re applying for.

You can find more details on assessment in our application guidance document (PDF).

The criteria we use to assess your application

Community need

Is there a significant need for this project in the community and evidence of good engagement with the community during planning?

Planning

Is the project planned well with a detailed and robust budget breakdown? Have relevant permissions been considered; e.g. land ownership and planning permission? Have risks (including changing costs of materials) been anticipated and mitigated?

Sustainability

·How will the project be sustained and bring benefit beyond the investment period? How will you ensure the project will still be running in a few years’ time and won’t just rely on future investment?

Value for money

Is the amount requested good value compared to the number of beneficiaries and overall impact of the project? Are costs expensive or inflated? Does the project seem like good value for money in comparison to similar projects?

Financial checks

We are required to perform due diligence checks on all applicant organisations. This is to ensure you have adequate systems and structures in place to be able to receive and spend the grant appropriately, and to evidence how the grant has been spent.

For GDPR reasons, though, we will only ask for your organisation’s bank details and bank statements at grant offer stage.

Contact the Community Fund team

Our Community Fund team work hard to ensure you have a fantastic experience during the application process.

If you have any feedback about the process, you’d like to ask a question about your application, or if you’d like to raise an issue, you can email the Community Fund team. We’ll endeavour to get back to you within three working days.