Funding local community groups

The Foundation can work with you to develop a mechanism for distributing grants to local organisations and projects utilising the income generated by the reorganised charitable trust funds.   In doing this, the Foundation would draw upon its extensive experience of identifying community needs and distributing grants to grass root community and voluntary organisations.

The Foundation would work with you to develop a bespoke grants programme for distributing the resources released by reorganising dormant or inactive charitable trusts. This would include:

  • Establishing the parameters for the grant programme.
  • Developing the criteria for making grant awards.
  • Promoting the availability of grants to those who are eligible to apply.
  • Handling enquiries from prospective applicants.
  • Signposting potential applicants to other sources of funding where appropriate
  • Setting deadlines and processing applications.
  • Contacting applicants and make assessments.
  • Providing a batch of assessed applications, with recommendations, to a local advisory group for decision making.
  • Awarding grants and informing applicants of results.
  • Undertaking all the associated administrative duties involved in running the fund and managing the grant making process.
  • Handling any associated press/PR relating to the award of grants.
  • Monitoring the use of grant funding and assessing the impact of individual projects and the overall funding programme.

A local advisory group would be established and it would be responsible for considering applications for funding from the newly established community fund. The composition of this group would be agreed in consultation with local representatives and efforts would be made to reflect all sections of the local community.

All grants will be distributed in the name of the new fund. Reference will also be made to the original charitable trusts and the council’s original role as trustee in all publicity materials relating to the new fund and the distribution of grants from the fund.

For more information, please call our public services development manager Robert Stevenson on 0131 524 0300.