Wee Grants

• For constituted community groups and registered charities with an annual income of less than £30,000.
• Organisations who support people who are experiencing (or are at high risk of experiencing) poverty and trauma.
• Funding of up to £5,000 for one year only.

Definitions:

Constituted community group: A group of people who come together to work toward a common agreed charitable purpose. The group is run on a voluntary basis with a management committee, formally adopted constitution and a bank account in its own name. The group is not registered with OSCR or with any other regulatory body.

Registered charity: A voluntary organisation set up only for charitable purposes and to provide public benefit. It’s registered with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) and will have a charity number in the format SC012345.

Annual Income: This is the total income your organisation received during the most recent financial/calendar year.  For registered Charities we’ll take this from your most recent Accounts, as submitted to OSCR.  For constituted groups we’ll take this from your most recent statement of income and expenditure.

If you are a new Charity, or haven’t produced a statement of income and expenditure, we’ll look at your projected costs for the year ahead. 

Generally, we will only consider applications for Wee Grants from organisations whose annual income is less than £30,000, however, there are some cases where we can make an exception and will try to be flexible where possible.  If you are unsure as to whether the fund is right for your organisation, please get in touch with us for an informal chat.

• Organisations who are already in receipt of funding from us, whether this is a Wee Grant or one of our other funds. If you are currently in receipt of a Wee Grant, we would ask that you wait at least 10 months from the date of our award email before reapplying.
• Organisations who distribute funding to third parties, including to individuals in the form of grants or bursaries.
• Umbrella organisations, for example those who coordinate the activities of member organisations and don’t directly deliver activities. 
• We cannot accept applications from Community Interest Companies, Limited Companies and Community Benefit Societies which are not registered charities. 

• A minimum of three members on your group or charity’s management committee or board, at least two of whom are unconnected. By unconnected we mean not related; married to each other; in a relationship with each other or living together at the same address.
• A bank account in the name of your group or charity, with two unconnected people required to make every withdrawal or payment. We’ll ask you to provide a copy of a recent bank statement, dated within three months, with your application. Guidance on what this should show is in our example bank statement (PDF).
• A recent financial statement. If you are a registered charity, this should be your most recent independently examined accounts (as provided to OSCR). If you are a constituted community group, this should be a recent statement of your income and expenditure covering a 12-month period. Guidance on what this should show can be found in this example Income & Expenditure statement. If your organisation is new and has not yet produced financial statements, we’ll ask you to send us a recent bank statement and details of an independent referee instead.  If you are a constituted group and aren’t able to provide a statement, we’ll ask you to provide details of your most recent income and expenditure.
• A safeguarding policy. If your work involves children, young people, or vulnerable adults, you’ll need to have a policy in place which sets out how you’ll keep them safe. You don’t need to provide us with a copy of this, just let us know that you have one in place if appropriate.  If you are not sure whether you need a safeguarding policy or would like some resources and advice for putting one together, you may find the NSPCC helpful. 
• If you are a constituted group, you’ll need to have a constitution in the name of your organisation, which is signed and dated as having been adopted by its management committee.  We won’t ask you to provide a copy of this with your application, just confirm that you have one.
• If you are a community group or a newly registered charity, you’ll need to provide details of an independent referee. This should be someone who works in your community and who knows your work. Examples of this might be a teacher, community councillor, GP, social worker or someone from your local authority or Third Sector Interface. We routinely contact referees, so please make sure the person whose details you’ve given is happy for us to get in touch.

The Robertson Trust’s strategy is about preventing and reducing poverty and trauma for people and communities in Scotland. Within this, we recognise the importance of strong, supportive and connected communities for people who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing poverty and trauma. We also understand the key role played by grassroots groups in helping to build these. We recognise that many organisations applying for a Wee Grant may not exist to tackle poverty and trauma specifically, but that their work to create social connections, peer supports and access to essential services benefits those who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing these issues.

Groups of people affected by poverty and trauma: We would like to fund work focusing on groups of people who experience higher rates of poverty and trauma, or who are at higher risk, than the population as a whole. We are focused on those groups in Scotland who are more likely to experience low incomes and restricted opportunities as a result.

These groups include but are not limited to:

• Lone parent families.
• Child poverty priority family groups (including larger families, families with young children, and young parent families).
• People experiencing severe or multiple disadvantage (e.g. due to homelessness, substance misuse and offending).
• Disabled people.
• Communities experiencing racial inequity
• Asylum seekers, refugees and those with no recourse to public funds.
• Households claiming Universal Credit or related low-income social security benefits.
• People with experience of the care system.
• Unpaid Carers.
• Women with low incomes.
• Young people (in most cases up to age 25, or 30 for those with additional support needs).
• Older people with low incomes.
• People living in deprived places, including rural or remote communities. We recognise that whilst SIMD and other measures can give an indication of disadvantage in a geographic area, they don’t always adequately show this, for example in remote and rural communities where there may be smaller pockets of disadvantage. We are open to hearing from applicants about the challenges in their community relating to poverty and trauma, and how their work responds to these. 

We are particularly interested in supporting applications which will benefit the groups listed above. Not everyone who falls into one of these groups will be experiencing or at greater risk of experiencing poverty and trauma, so it is important that you describe in your application how these issues are affecting the people you support, and how your work will help address this.

Examples of work we can consider might include: family fun days or activities for children and young people in a deprived community; Men’s Sheds or lunch clubs for older people on low incomes; community gardens, events and spaces, such as village halls or community centres, in deprived areas, including rural communities with deprivation; social activities for asylum seekers and refugees; and sports or physical activity for disabled people. Please note that this list is not exhaustive and that we consider each application on its own merits, particularly considering how poverty (and trauma) affects the community your organisation supports. 

Whilst we expect that most organisations applying for a Wee Grant will have a broad, community focus, we are also interested in funding targeted requests which address one or more of our funding themes – please click through for details:

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

This could include the costs of food/fuel vouchers, hardship funds, community larders/pantries, free events for families, clothing banks including school uniform banks, Christmas appeals for children, breakfast clubs, financial education workshops, cooking on a budget classes or equipment/kit for sports clubs.

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

This might include schools transition programmes, homework clubs or other after school educational activities, uniform groups which deliver life skills, or accredited youth programmes e.g. Duke of Edinburgh.

3. 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. 

This might include the costs of delivering ESOL classes, digital skills workshops, skills development training and volunteering programmes.

4. Nurturing Relationships - Supporting nurturing relationships within families and communities, to help avoid the impact of poverty on relationships, and support recovery.

This might include the costs of parent and toddler groups for families experiencing poverty; family activities, such as trips and outings, for families on low incomes; or services which support people with experience of substance misuse.

The examples given above are not exhaustive and there may be other work we would consider through these themes.  If you are unsure as to whether we might support your work, please get in touch with us.

Please note that your work does not need to fit with one of these themes to be considered for funding, however, it should be focused on delivering services or supports for people and communities with higher rates of or a higher risk of poverty and trauma, as listed above.

You can apply for a Wee Grant to:

• Part or fully fund your work or project up to a maximum of £5,000
• Fund the costs of a specific project where the total project costs are less than £30,000
• Fund your day to day running costs, provided your annual income is less than £30,000

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

• Work which takes place outside Scotland, including the costs of travel outwith Scotland.
• Work which seeks to address forms of trauma which are not connected to experiences of poverty, for example, trauma caused by a car accident, bereavement or illnesses experienced across the general population.
• Funding for individuals (by this we mean we won’t provide funding which will primarily benefit only one or a very small group of individuals), although we can consider the costs of food/fuel vouchers to individuals to help with the costs of essentials.
• Whilst we can provide funding to faith-based organisations delivering services and activities for the wider community, we cannot contribute towards projects and activities which incorporate the promotion of religious (or political) 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 where there are no clear links to how this will address or mitigate the impact of poverty for families.
• Requests from school parent councils for activities, resources or equipment for curricular use/use primarily during the school day.
• Capital costs of memorials and statues
• The purchase of building and/or land
• Capital refurbishment costs on buildings or land not owned by your organisation or on which you do not have an appropriate lease.
• Any retrospective costs already incurred by the applicant organisation.

• Please complete our online application form. You can also upload the supporting paperwork we need with the form.
• If for any reason you are unable to complete the online form, you can use our Word version of this which you can download here, which you can email to us along with your supporting documentation to weegrants@therobertsontrust.org.uk
• View a Guide to Completing Our Online Application Forms.

• Want to see what we ask for in the application form or not sure how much information you should include? You can view a completed example application here.
• We’ll ask you three main questions about your organisation and your work. Please keep this simple and avoid using jargon – we would like to hear about your work in your own words!
• You should tell us about what our funding will help you to deliver and how this will make a difference for the people or community you support.
• You don’t need to apply for a specific project – we can also consider funding your day-to-day services or activities. We’re happy to consider existing or ongoing work – you don’t need to try and come up with something new!

We’ll email you to let you know we’ve received your application and provide you with a link to a read-only online copy of your completed form.  We’ll aim to tell you the outcome of your application within 8 weeks.*

We may however need to get in touch with you during this time if we need any additional information or documentation.  It is therefore important that the contact details you give us are correct and up to date so that we can make a decision on your application within these timescales.  Please also let us know if your contact details change after you’ve sent us your application.

* As we are receiving increased numbers of applications, we have taken the decision to extend our published timescales for decisions to 10-12 weeks for applications received across all of our funds. We plan to review this at the end of June and hope at that point to return to our normal published turnaround times.

If we award you funding we’ll aim to make payment of the funds within two weeks, subject to receipt of your organisation’s bank details which we’ll ask you to provide in our award email. You can then start to use our funds!

We may award you less funding than you asked for.  Although we can fund up to £5,000 through Wee Grants, please be aware that we won’t be able to award this level of funding to all applicants.  We’ll base our decision on the nature of your work and how well this fits with the aims of this Fund.  Demand for our funding is high and we will prioritise applications from organisations whose work is more strongly aligned with our strategy in terms of reducing or preventing poverty and trauma. 

You don't need to send us a report, however, we would love to hear from you if there’s anything you do want to share with us. You can send us pictures, videos, quotes, or anything else to weegrants@therobertsontrust.org.uk 

Your Wee Grant is for a 12-month period. It’s fine if you use the funds within a shorter timeframe, however we would ask that you wait at least 10 months from the date of our award email before reapplying for a Wee Grant.

Take a look at the Support for grant holders section of our website for useful information.

If we don’t award you funding, we’ll try our best to let you know why. If you don’t understand our decision or would like to speak to about this, we’re happy for you to get in touch.  You can call us on 0141 353 7300 or email us at weegrants@therobertsontrust.org.uk and a member of our team will aim to respond to you within five working days.

If you want to apply to us again after being unsuccessful, you can do so at any time.  Before doing so however, please consider the reason we haven’t awarded you funding this time. If it’s something you can address, we would welcome a new application from you, however we would expect you to tell us how you have addressed the issue.

We don’t have a bank statement yet. Can we still apply?

If you’ve recently opened a bank account for your organisation, we can accept a letter from your bank confirming an account has been opened.  This should be on official, letter headed paper and include the date, account name, sort code and account number. 

We are a newly registered charity/group and don’t have accounts or financial statements yet. Can we still apply?

Yes! We’ll just ask you to provide a recent copy of a bank statement (or letter confirming an account has been opened as above), dated within 3 months, and details of an independent referee.

We bank with a credit union. What information do you need?

We need to see documentation which clearly shows the following:

• The name of the credit union you bank with
• The name the account is in, which should be the name of your organisation
• The sort code and account number
• The membership/payroll number for your organisation

Please also make sure that your credit union can accept payments from third parties as we are unable to make payments to individuals’ personal accounts.

I’m not sure what financial information you need, and why?

We ask for financial statements so that we can see what income your organisation brings in and what it spends this on. This helps us determine your need for funding from us. 

If you are a registered charity, you are required by law to provide annual accounts to the charity regulator in Scotland (OSCR) which must be reviewed externally by someone independent of your charity. This can take the form of an independent examination or an audit. Further information on this can be found on the OSCR website.

If you are a constituted group you don’t need to provide formal accounts, however we would still expect you to be able to demonstrate how you manage your finances and keep appropriate records of your organisation’s income and expenditure for any given period.  This could be a simple statement of income and expenditure which also shows the funds held at the end of the period. These don’t need to be externally examined but should be signed and dated as being approved by someone on your committee.

We appreciate it can be difficult for smaller groups to prepare financial statements.  If you can’t provide one with your application, we’ll ask you to provide details of your most recent income and expenditure for a 12-month period instead.  We would however recommend you seek to prepare and keep appropriate financial records for your organisation in future and your local Third Sector Interface may be able to help you with this.

We are a constituted group. Do you need to see a copy of our constitution?

No!  In the application form we’ll ask you to confirm that you have a constitution in the name of your organisation which has been signed, dated, and adopted by your management committee.  You do not need to send us a copy of it.

We would also expect your constitution to have an ‘open’ membership clause, which states that membership of your organisation is open to all and cannot be refused without good reason and a dissolution clause which states that, if the organisation winds up, any remaining assets must be transferred on to another voluntary organisation or charity with similar aims. 

Why do you need details of an independent referee?

If you are a constituted group OR a newly registered charity which has not yet produced Annual Accounts, we’ll ask you to provide details of an independent referee.  This should be someone from your community who can vouch for your work but who is not directly involved with your organisation.  This lets us know are well connected within your community and are known to others.  It may also be the first time we’ve received an application from you. 

Please make sure you have permission to provide their details and that they are happy for us to get in touch.

We have a video or other content we feel would best showcase our work. Can we send you this as our application?

We’re happy to look at alternative ways for you to tell us about your work or project. Please get in touch with us to discuss how we can support you to apply in this way.

Can we send our application to you by post?

We’re happy for you to send us your application by post or in person to Robertson House, 152 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4TB.  Please note however that it may take us slightly longer to reach our team and be acknowledged.