We support charities with an annual income of between £25,000 and £1 million with a strong track record of helping people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities overcome complex social issues. We offer a two-year unrestricted grant of £50,000 alongside development support to help your charity navigate change.
Learn about the type of work we fund
Start by selecting the complex social issue your charity mainly focuses on
Start by selecting the complex social issue your charity mainly focuses on
Check your eligibility in five minutes
Enter the local authority where you carry out your work
Enter the local authority where you carry out your work
We'll send you a link to a short application form
Tell us about your charity, the difference you make and your development needs
Tell us about your charity, the difference you make and your development needs
Your application will be reviewed by one of our Grants Officers
We’ll look at how your charity fits with our criteria, and arrange to call you to find out more
We’ll look at how your charity fits with our criteria, and arrange to call you to find out more
Have a virtual meeting with one of our managers
We will advise whether or not you will progress to the Grants Panel for a final decision
We will advise whether or not you will progress to the Grants Panel for a final decision
There is no closing date for applications. When we receive your application we'll aim to give you a decision within four months.
This year, at least 25% of the grants we make will go to charities led by-and-for Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Under our Racial Equity funding strand, we support charities where more than half of their Trustee Board self-identify as belonging to a Black, Asian or minority ethnic community.
The scope of ‘Minority Ethnic communities’ includes those that have historically experienced marginalisation, racialisation, oppression and prejudice. Therefore, also in scope is work that benefits Jewish communities, Gypsy & Traveller communities and some migrant communities.
Your charity will support people from specific Black, Asian or minority ethnic communities to overcome any of the following 11 complex social issues:
This funding is right for you if you can demonstrate that some of the services you provide are in-depth, holistic and targeted at a particular complex social issue. You’ll also be able to tell us about the needs of the community you serve, and how you’ve identified these.
Unfortunately, we are unable to support purely second-tier or infrastructure organisations, nor can we support organisations whose activities are purely campaigning.
What we mean by targeted: Nilaari Centre
To target our investment where it is most needed, we will only consider applications from charities that are delivering direct services to people affected by one of our complex social issues.
Last year, successful charities demonstrated a track record of delivering services specifically targeted at addressing one of our complex social issues.
For example in 2020, we funded the Nilaari Centre in Bristol, which provides culturally appropriate services targeted at members of its community who are affected by severe mental ill health.
It is a registered charity with over 20 years’ experience delivering social care, support, talking therapies and training, helping people to deal with mental ill health and substance misuse.
Mental ill health has a significant adverse impact on the daily lives of the people they support. The charity uses its understanding and experience of offering mental health support to its community to advocate for equality and social justice in key strategic policy forums.
Their support addresses a gap in statutory provision, is person-centred and is targeted at members of their community experiencing severe mental ill health.
What do we mean by 'charities by-and-for Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities?: The Angelou Centre
More than half of your Trustee Board should self-identify as being Black, Asian or from a minority ethnic community. We would also expect your organisation to offer support targeted at people from one or more Black, Asian or minority ethnic communities.
For example in 2020, we awarded a £50,000 grant to The Angelou Centre in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which empowers women and children to rebuild lives free from violence and abuse. Not only are they there to support black and minoritised women and children whose needs are not well met by mainstream services, but The Angelou Centre is also representative of the community they seek to serve, providing a range of services such as:
Over 95% of the staff and Trustees at The Angelou Centre are Black, Asian and minority ethnic women and they also operate Voices groups to include users’ voices at the heart of their work. They work closely with other Black, Asian and minority ethnic-led charities and seek to work with strategic partners to create systems change for black and minoritised women.
The Angelou Centre supports women and children through a wide range of services, including Independent Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Advocacy, specialist therapeutic bilingual counselling, peer support for women escaping abuse and accommodation services for refugee women.
How we manage Regional Priorities
We recognise that there are many charities out there that would like and would benefit from our support but, like any funder, we have a limit to the resources we have available. In fact, in 2021, we will only be able to make around 190 new grants to small charities in England and Wales, and we know there are many more than which who would be eligible to apply.
We also want to be open and transparent with charities and make best use of their time by being clear in advance which charities and areas we are more likely to fund at any time. Therefore, we have introduced ‘regional priorities’.
Regional Priorities consider local need, the prevalence of eligible small and medium sized charities, the nature of the region and the level of investment the Foundation has given to each complex social issue in that area, including our portfolio of live grants.
Whether your charity can apply to us this year depends on which Local Authority you do the majority of your work in, and the Complex Social Issue you are working to address. We review and update these regional priorities every six months.
In setting our priorities for Racial Equity, we used a combined assessment of the relative size of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities and the prevalence of high deprivation in local authority areas across England and Wales to identify the ‘top’ 78 areas. We are also open to applications from across the four funding regions which received the fewest Racial Equity applications last year- the South West, South Central, Wales and North East and Cumbria.
What do we mean by
In-depth
We fund charities which work with people over a prolonged period (a minimum of 12-weeks). As a result, we do not fund work that is primarily one-off advice or signposting.
Holistic and person-centred
We expect the charity to use a 'person centred approach'. The individual will have been assessed and their needs identified with a plan of support put in place. Where your charity cannot meet all of an individual’s identified needs, you will need to tell us how you are working in partnership with others to address them.
Targeted
We do not support work that is purely reactive, or for the benefit of an entire geographic community. The charity will have identified a specific group of beneficiaries, will understand their needs and pro-actively seek to support them.
Supporting a journey of change
We expect the charity to be able to monitor and measure positive, outcome-based changes. These may not always be ‘hard’ outcomes, but we need to see evidence that the charity is supporting its service users to develop new skills, confidence, independence, security and/or agency.
Core cost funding
We apply few restrictions to the grants we make, instead we trust charities to spend their money how they see fit. Therefore, we do not ask for a budget, or how the money will be spent.
Developmental Support
We are able to offer charities a range of tailored developmental support to help build organisational capacity, improve resilience and sustainability. This could be support to embed a new database, one of our expert consultants to help with your governance or fundraising, or even guidance on a particular finance or HR issue. We know the impact this support can have, so we are particularly keen to work with charities that can demonstrate an understanding of their own organisational development issues, and an appetite to address these.
Unrestricted funding
This is an unrestricted grant programme which means you can use the grant for any purpose that furthers your charity’s aims. For example, your Board might decide to build reserves or choose to pay for extra capacity to engage with organisational development. We do not ask for a budget or how the money will be spent.
Watch our Core Funding Webinar and Q&A
Learn more about the fund, the Racial Equity funding stream, application process and eligibility for our core funding in this webinar with the Grants Team.
Still have questions? Download our eligibility criteria.
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If you are still experiencing issues give our support team a call on 0370 411 1223 or email us at enquiries@lloydsbankfoundation.org.uk.
Apply for funding for Racial Equity
