Large Grants guidance

Who and what are Large Grants for?

• For registered charities working in Scotland, with an annual income* of between £100,000 and £2 million, that support people who are experiencing (or are at risk of experiencing) poverty or trauma
• Unrestricted or restricted revenue funding* of between £15,000 and £50,000 per year, for up to five years
• Due to upcoming changes to Our Funds, the last date to apply is 12 noon, Friday 31st May 2024.

Please note that unless the activities outlined in your application are purposely designed to address those issues described within one or more of our four Primary Themes, we are unable to consider your request for a Large Grant.  Details of our Themes are as follows:

Financial Security

Emotional Wellbeing and Relationships

Education Pathways

Work Pathways

In some circumstances, where applicants feel that their work addresses the broader aims of one or more of our Primary Themes, we may be able to consider an application for a Small Grant. However, this type of funding was developed to support smaller organisations with annual income of up to £100,000 and these are therefore the groups which we will prioritise under Small Grants. This is because we wish to ensure that the application process and level of any funding awarded is proportionate to the size of the applicant organisation. If you have any queries regarding this, please email us at the following address  funding@therobertsontrust.org.uk

*Definitions:

Annual Income: This is based on the money your organisation received in the last financial year, as shown in your most recent annual accounts. If you are a new organisation, which has not yet produced accounts, you can base this on the income you expect to bring in in the year ahead. As a general rule, we will only accept applications for Large Grants from charities whose annual income is between £100K and £2M. There are some cases where we will make exceptions, for example, if your income last year was less than £100K but you are growing your activities and projecting increased costs; or if your income was over £2M due to one-off funding for a capital project, or additional services delivered to support your community during the pandemic.  If you would like to be considered for a Large Grant but you’re still not sure if it’s right for your charity, please call us on 0141 353 4321 to discuss.

Revenue funding is used to cover the costs of providing day-to-day services. We can provide revenue funding in two ways:

Unrestricted funding: can be spent on annual running costs of your organisation, such as salaries, heating, lighting, administration, consumables and small items of equipment. We particularly welcome applications for unrestricted funding where the work of your organisation is purposely designed to addresses an issue described within one or more of our four Primary Themes. We can however consider the costs of projects and specific salaries or activities if this will better meet your needs.  

Restricted funding: can only be used for a specific project, activity or designated purpose, as applied or identified and agreed by us as being aligned to an issue described within one or more of our four Primary Themes.

Who can’t apply?

• Charities who are already in receipt of revenue funding from us.  Due to the high level of demand for our funding, you can normally only hold one revenue award at a time*. This includes revenue funding from our previous Open Grants programme (which closed in early 2020). If you wish to apply for further funding, the earliest you can do so is 6 months before the end of your current grant period. If successful, we would not release any funds before your existing grant ends and you’ve sent us your End of Grant Report. 
• Housing Associations and Arm’s Length External Organisations (ALEOs). These types of organisation are not currently eligible for funding from us. However, we are committed to reviewing our guidance and criteria across the course of our strategy. To be kept informed, please sign up to our mailing list.

*In the event that you require funding for additional work which is strongly aligned to a priority area of interest as listed under one of our 4 themes, and which you feel may be at risk due to lack of funds, please call us on 0141 353 4321 to discuss. We may be able to consider a further request but please understand that this would only be under exceptional circumstances. 

What do I need to apply?

• A minimum of three unconnected Trustees on your charity’s Board. By unconnected we mean not related by blood; married to each other; in a relationship with each other or living together at the same address.
• Recent independently examined or audited annual accounts.
• A safeguarding policy. If your organisation directly supports children and young people or vulnerable adults, we would expect you to have an appropriate policy document which sets out how you will keep them safe.
• A policy on equality and diversity. We want to know that your organisation has a written agreement detailing how you will avoid discriminating against people, and how you will create a safe and inclusive atmosphere both within your workplace and for the people you support.
• If your request is for funding towards a specific salary cost, you’ll need a full job description, including contracted hours per week and salary scale.

In partnership?

We welcome applications from organisations which understand the value of working in partnership with others. Here we will prioritise awards for work which addresses those issues listed under one or more of our 4 funding themes. We would also expect to see a focus on prevention and on change, either at practice, organisational or at system level.

Formal Partnerships

These are Partnerships where any approved funding would be distributed directly to several members of the partnership. If this is the structure of your partnership, please nominate a lead organisation who will complete the application on behalf of all the partners. We will also require a signed copy of your Memorandum of Understanding, which includes the contact details for all partners. Please note that all partners should meet the eligibility criteria for Our Funds. This means that organisations with an annual income of more than £2 million would not be eligible for support within a partnership approach under Our Funds. We will also take into consideration the nature of any current awards which partners may currently be holding from the Trust.

If you are thinking of applying for a formal partnership award, please contact us to discuss your ideas before you complete an application form.

Otherwise, applications from informal partnerships, where only the lead organisation will receive and spend any approved funding, are welcome through our standard application process.

What type of work will you fund?

Through our Large Grants, as with all our funding, we want to support work that addresses the impacts of poverty and/or trauma under one or more of these themes - please click through for details:

1. Financial Security: addressing the financial and material effects of poverty on people and communities.

2. Emotional Wellbeing and Relationships*: ensuring people have emotional wellbeing, and confidence and strength in their relationships with others.

3. Education Pathways: equipping people for the future through learning and skills pathways.

4. Work Pathways: improving employability services, and employability rates, for key population groups currently underrepresented in the labour market, and overrepresented in low paid, insecure, work.

* Applying for a Large Grant: Emotional Wellbeing and Relationships 

Read our recent update which aims to support those applying for a Large Grant through Our Funds. This update looks a little deeper at each of the issues relating to Emotional Wellbeing and Relationships and provides examples of what we have recently funded.

The above themes apply to all of our Funds. We are particularly interested in how any proposed projects and activities under these themes will contribute to our strategic aim of improving outcomes for communities and individuals affected by poverty and trauma. This is particularly important if you are requesting a Large Grant where we would expect to see a very clear and direct link.  Across all three of these themes, we can fund work that:

• meets people’s immediate needs around poverty or trauma 
• provides earlier help which aims to prevent or reduce the likelihood of experiencing negative outcomes relating to poverty and/or trauma 
• tests new approaches or does more of what works 
• is universal (aimed at a wide group of people or an entire community) or targeted (focusing on a specific beneficiary group, e.g. young people). However, your application must show as long as it shows how it will meet the needs of people (at risk of) experiencing poverty or trauma. 

We know that  specific groups of people  are more likely to experience poverty or trauma, and will prioritise applications for work which is specifically aimed at supporting these groups.  

Partnerships: we are also keen to fund work delivered through both formal and informal partnerships. If your request is being made on behalf of a formal collaboration of more than one organisation, please refer to the ‘What do I need to apply?’ section of this guidance for more information on the additional information we require.

What can I apply for?

• Revenue funding of between £15,000 and £50,000 per year for up to five years, depending on your need or request. Please see our FAQs for applicants for further information.
• We can consider unrestricted funding, which can be used to support any costs within your organisation, to help you further your work. Where there are elements of your organisation’s work that do not fit with our themes, you may not be eligible for unrestricted funding.
• Alternatively, we can consider restricted funding for a specific salary, project or service, including any associated equipment costs. We can consider fully funding a small project, part- or full-time salary, or part-funding a larger project or service.
• You don’t need to have any match funding in place when you apply, however if the expected total costs of your project, service or salary exceed our maximum level of award, you will need to consider additional sources of funding.
• You can only hold one revenue grant from the Trust at any one time.
• If your organisation also needs capital funding specifically towards the costs of a vehicle, you can apply separately for a Community Vehicle Grant. 

What will not be considered for funding?

We’re happy to fund most costs, however there are certain costs and activities we would not consider supporting:

• Work which takes place outside Scotland
• Funding for individuals
• Projects and activities which incorporate the promotion of political or religious beliefs, or requests for salaried posts and volunteer costs where there is a requirement to be of a particular faith or none. This is because of the Trust’s commitment to support and enable equal access to activities, employment and volunteering opportunities, regardless of whether an individual is of a particular faith or none
• Feasibility studies or academic research
• Replacement of statutory revenue funding for mainstream playgroups and nurseries
• Standalone costs of childcare provision, although we may consider broader support for low-income families, where childcare forms part of this. We may also consider requests to fund the provision of targeted childcare places for low-income families, however, we will prioritise those which include wider family support.   
• Day care or residential care for older people 
• Standalone events or festivals – i.e. events that are not part of a larger programme of work relating to poverty and trauma
• Any retrospective costs already incurred by the applicant organisation
• Any costs not incurred by (or the salaries of staff not directly employed by) the applicant organisation.
• The salary costs of staff who are also Trustees/Directors on the applicant organisation’s Board.
• Capital costs such as building or renovation works, although, as above, we may consider small items of equipment as part of your revenue request. 

If any of the above costs make up a large part of your organisation’s annual expenditure, we will be more likely to restrict any grant we award you.

What do you look for in an application?

We consider a number of key criteria when assessing applications. As well as meeting the basic requirements and fit with our themes, as outlined above, we want all organisations who apply for a Large Grant to demonstrate how they focus on poverty and trauma. This is one of the most important considerations to us as a funder and will influence the level of funding that we are able to offer.

• Focus on poverty and trauma: Organisations should show us that they understand how this affects their community or client group and the challenges they are facing in their lives as a result, as well as how their work responds to this. Organisations applying for higher levels of funding should be delivering work which is specifically targeted at people who are facing poverty and trauma. We would like to see that these organisations have a clear understanding of poverty and trauma, that this is core to their work, and that they can clearly show how their work will make a change.

We also would like all organisations who apply for a Large Grant to demonstrate how they:

• Focus on community: by showing that they involve their community in the organisation, for example on the Board or through volunteering; and that they listen to their community and respond to their needs. This can be a geographic community or a community of interest. Organisations applying for higher levels of funding should show that they have listened to people with lived experience, that they have consulted with their client group and considered their views. They should also have a track record in their field and show that their work will potentially leave a legacy.
• Focus on relationships: by showing that their work clearly has a relational focus and that this is reflected in their policies and governance; by showing how they involve members/participants and that they apply a rights-based approach in their work (i.e. that they treat people with fairness, dignity and respect).
• Focus on collaboration: by showing that they know who else is delivering related work and that they have a willingness to collaborate and share learning. Organisations applying for higher levels of funding should have a track record of working collaboratively and have clear plans to share learning from their work.

Other criteria we consider include:

• The size of grant the applicant organisation is asking for, relative to its annual income – we try to be proportionate in how much we award
• The organisation’s financial position, including its sustainability and whether it has an immediate need for our funds
• How well the organisation is governed and, where appropriate, the safeguarding policies and arrangements it has in place.

More information about what we look for in an application and what’s important to us.  

How do I apply?

Please complete our online application form.

With this, we also ask that you provide:

• A copy of your most recent independently examined or audited annual accounts
• A full job description, including contracted hours per week and salary scale, if your request is for funding towards a specific salary cost.

You can download a copy of our application questions and help text here.

Due to upcoming changes to Our Funds, the last date to apply is 12 noon, Friday 31st May 2024. 

What happens next?

• We’ll email you to confirm we’ve got your application and when you can expect to receive a decision.
• We’ll aim to tell you the outcome of your application within 10-12 weeks. This is dependent on receiving any additional information we may ask for – delays in receiving this extra information could mean the decision takes longer. We're currently receiving increased numbers of applications across Our Funds. The Team is continuing to work hard to respond to requests and assess new applications within our published deadlines, but if there are any changes to this we'll notify applicants on an individual basis.
• We’ll send all correspondence about your application via email, so it’s important that the email addresses and contact details you provide in your application are correct. Please let us know if there are any changes to these as we are likely to contact you during the assessment of your application. We will normally contact the person you’ve listed as the ‘application contact’ in the first instance, so it’s helpful if this person is available during the assessment period.
• We’ll assign one of our Funding Officers to assess your application. They may get in touch with you during the assessment period and will be able to help you with any changes or updates you might need to make to your application.

If we award you funding:

• If you have been awarded funding, we’ll email you to let you know. Before we can pay your funds, we’ll ask you to provide a copy of a recent bank statement for your organisation’s account (within the last three months).
• We may also ask you to complete certain actions before we can pay your funds. This is more likely to be the case for restricted awards rather than unrestricted. For example, we might ask you to provide evidence of other funding or let us know when a new postholder has been appointed etc.
• Once we have the information we’ve asked for, we’ll do our best to pay the funds to your organisation’s bank account within two weeks.
• We’ll let you know in your award email how and when we’ll ask you for updates on your work during your grant period. In general, we’ll ask you to send us a report at the end of each grant year telling us about your progress. We may use this information to highlight stories and case studies used as part of our Communications work. We may also arrange to visit you or speak to you on the phone to find out how you’re getting on and whether you need any additional support from us.
• As you approach the end of your grant, we know you may be thinking about further funding. You can reapply to us from 6 months before the end of your grant period. If successful, we would not release any funds before your existing grant ends and you’ve sent us your End of Grant Report.

Take a look at the Support for grant holders section.

If we do not award you funding:

• We’ll send you an email in which we’ll try our best to explain why we’ve not awarded you funding. We will also let you know in our email how soon you can re-apply. If the reason we haven’t awarded you funding is something we think you can address, you may be able to re-apply once you have been able to do so. We’ll explain this in the email.
• If you would like to have a chat with us about our decision and whether – or how soon – you can re-apply, you can email us on funding@therobertsontrust.org.uk and your Funding Officer will get back to you within five working days.