The #iwill Fund will support social action activities with grants to create opportunities for young people aged 10-20 (or 25 for young people with disabilities) living in Worcestershire to develop their potential and their capacity to significantly contribute to their community.
Grants between £1,000 and £10,000 are available for projects lasting up to a year. Funding requests over £5,000 will need to demonstrate significant reach and impact e.g. high beneficiary numbers, multiple locations, young people with complex needs, strong outcomes or next steps.
Worcestershire has £67,446 of #iwill funding to distribute across the county.
A definition of Youth Social Action
“Young people taking practical action in the service of others in order to create positive social change that is of benefit to the wider community as well as to the young person themselves.” Young Foundation
Social action involves activities such as campaigning, fundraising and volunteering and has huge potential to create enjoyable opportunities and skills development for young people, and in turn benefit the local people and places.
Priorities
The fund will prioritise projects that:
- Are working with 10-14 year olds.
- Seek to increase participation from young people from less affluent social economic groups and young people who might not usually take part in volunteering, campaigning and fundraising activities, in particular:
- young people from socio-economically deprived areas and communities, specifically those scoring lower than 20% on the indices of multiple deprivation.
- young people in areas of economic deprivation and those ethnic groups that have been hit especially hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Build the appetite of young people to continue with campaigning, fundraising and/or volunteering; support habit forming behaviour; leave a legacy of behaviour/activity after the funding stops.
- Involve young people in consultation, planning, delivery and evaluation.
- Give young people the opportunity to learn new skills and develop their character and confidence.
- Give young people the platform to get their voice heard.
All applications should address some of the 6 principles of youth social action:
- Reflective – recognising contributions as well as valuing critical reflection and learning
- Challenging – stretching and ambitious as well as enjoyable and enabling
- Youth Led – led, owned and shaped by young people’s needs, ideas and decision making
- Socially impactful – have a clear and intended benefit to a community, cause or social problem
- Progressive – sustained, and providing links to other activities and opportunities
- Embedded – accessible to all, and well-integrated to existing pathways to become a habit for life
Further information about the 6 principles can be found on the #iwill website.
Who can apply?
This fund is open to registered charities, constituted community groups and other charitable organisations including Social Enterprises and Community Interest Companies (CICs).
- Local and regional organisations must be operating in Worcestershire
- National organisations with local branches based in Worcestershire (with their own management committee and bank account) can apply.
- New organisations can apply if they can demonstrate that they are financially robust and can reach young people that are new to social action.
What we will fund
- Staff costs – including full-time staff, part time staff, sessional staff and other related expenses e.g. a Volunteer Coordinator
- Development and capacity building costs – to help build capacity and sustainability of organisation, e.g. staff/volunteer training, external consultancy fees
- Volunteer costs – for reimbursements of expenses, e.g. telephone calls, travel and meals
- Activity costs – for resources to facilitate a project/activity (which are not already included as part of equipment, volunteer or staffing costs) e.g. catering, insurance
- Skills development projects – to help young people be ‘social action-ready’
- Established groups with an existing youth provision may apply for NEW projects or an expansion and development of an existing project (recruiting new young people etc) which meet the aims of #iwill
- Continuation funding for previously funded organisations is available, where the organisation can demonstrate effective and impactful use of the previous grant and learning and adaptation of processes
What we won’t fund
- Statutory services
- Activities promoting religious or party-political activity
- Capital costs/large equipment costs (small scale equipment, such as tools are acceptable up to 10% of the requested grant)
- Individual sponsorship
- Activities generating private profit
- Organisations that are in receipt of a current #iwill grant from a community foundation (unless the grant is due to be spent and monitoring submitted before the new grant would be awarded)
When to apply?
The round closed on Sunday, 13th November 2022. All funding must be spent by December 2023.
Please read all the above guidance carefully before making an application.
For further in-depth guidance information please click here
Please contact Joanne Anderson, Grants Officer [email protected] if you have any queries regarding eligibility and/or the fund priorities.
