The Small Charities Coalition (SCC) has partnered with the Betty Messenger Charitable Foundation on a grant programme that aims to challenge conventional ways of grantmaking.
The total amount of funding available is £50,000 and grants will be from £100 to £1,000.
SCC is not taking an administration fee for this work, so 100% of the funding will go directly to small charities.
Decisions on grants will be taken by volunteers from SCC as part of a series of participatory panels.
It launched a week ago and so far 71 applications have been submitted.
The process has also seen 100 members apply to become volunteer grantmakers.
Rita Chadha, chief executive at the SCC, said: “This is an incredible opportunity to start re-examining the power dynamics of grantmaking and to invest in a proactive way the skills and development needs of those that run small charities. It is a win-win situation.”
The closing date for this round of applications is Sunday 20 September. It is a rolling programme with a deadline of the 20th of each month.
Robert Wallis, trustee of the Betty Messenger Charitable Foundation, said: “Part of our ethos is that the small acts of kindness are just as, if not more important than large causes. The large charities attract most of the resources available and the smaller ones can struggle.
“Through our recent workshop, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to support smaller charities to self-regulate and the Small Charities Coalition is right up our street! We spend a lot of our time responding to the new Covid-19 challenges as far as charity work is concerned and we champion volunteer charities wherever possible - the work smaller charities are doing is required even more in this environment and we are happy to contribute to the innovative ways of sustaining this crucial work being undertaken by the Small Charities Coalition.”
Panel members will not be asked to read applications prior to the session and will instead be given a redacted version of these to read during the session. They will also be given some basic guidance in advance of the meeting and a checklist of points to consider when reviewing applications.
Related articles
