Written by South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation
Grants of up to £15,000 for community organisations supporting young people (aged 14-30 years) to get good, productive and rewarding jobs in South Yorkshire.
Based on consultation with local employers, partners and community organisations, we understand that supporting young people into productive and rewarding employment needs a range of approaches, from pre-employability through to pathways into work, so we are looking to fund activity across all three of the approaches below.
- Pre employability skills: engagement, soft skills development
- Pre employment and establishing pathways: interview techniques, access to support centres, mentoring, skills training
- Pathways to Employment: offering apprenticeships, kickstart programmes, graduate schemes, work experience, employment
(NB each grant is only expected to fund one of the approaches above, but throughout this round we hope to fund a range of grants which between them cover all three approaches).
Priority will be given to organisations working specifically with vulnerable and marginalised young people, as listed in our Guidance Notes
How much can I apply for?
Up to £15,000 over three years (i.e., up to £5,000 per year).
When can I apply?
Applications are open now. Please submit your application by 12 noon on Tuesday 22 November. Grants will be paid from early February.
How do I apply?
The application form is available here.
Please read our Guidance Notes and answer the questions with as much information as possible.
You can find our top 10 tips for your application here.
If you are based in Barnsley or Sheffield, and you would like more support to make an application, please contact our colleagues at SYFAB who will be happy to help you
If you would like to discuss your funding request before submitting, then please contact our grants team.
Linking Employers with young people, and engaging vulnerable and marginalised groups
This funding also aims to support young people to connect and engage with local employers and businesses. This support could include job coaches, workplace visits and interview workshops.
Where possible, SYCF aims to facilitate a link between employers and those working with young people in order for mutually beneficial partnerships to develop. In this way we hope to align needs of young people to plans and outcomes expected from employer.
Who can apply?
Moving On Up grants are for community organisations in South Yorkshire. This includes charities, community groups, and not-for-profit social enterprises. To be eligible for a grant you must:
- Have a governing document (e.g., a constitution or memorandum of association),
- Have a board or management committee of at least three unrelated people,
- Have a bank account in the name of the group requiring at least two unrelated signatories, and
- Have beneficiaries who live in South Yorkshire and be locally led and run.
We will only fund local offices or branches of a national charity if they have their own local management committee and manage their own local finances.
A partnership approach is particularly encouraged, because we believe that community organisations can achieve more by working together with other community groups, businesses and statutory partners. One organisation will need to submit the proposal as the lead applicant, meeting the eligibility criteria above, taking responsibility for the application as a whole and ensuring that roles and responsibilities of all partners are clearly set out within the application.
What can be funded?
The grant funding is focused on project costs including operating, revenue and relevant capital costs.
If your application includes staff costs, we encourage you to pay at least the real Living Wage.
Don’t forget to include a fair share of overheads like rent or room hire, utilities, and admin or management costs needed to support your project.
For more information about how to develop a project budget, see this SYFAB information sheet.
What cannot be funded?
Grants cannot be awarded to fund:
- For-profit organisations, statutory organisations (e.g., schools and hospitals) or overseas organisations
- Retrospective funding (activity and costs that have already taken place or repayment of money which has already been spent)
- Overseas trips or expeditions
- Grant-making to other organisations and/or individuals
- Organisations or activities primarily for the benefit of animals rather than people
- Activity that promotes a particular political or religious point of view
We can fund religious organisations (like a church, mosque or gurdwara) delivering activity which benefits the community (like running interview skills sessions), but we cannot fund religious services or activity intended to promote a particular religion.
If activity is intended to target a particular group of people (ethnicity, gender, religion, etc.) there should be a good reason for this, for example if this is the best way to redress an existing inequality or to ensure services reach a group which would otherwise be underserved or marginalised.
What happens after I apply?
Decision making:
On receipt of the application forms, we will check the eligibility and supporting documents, and assess your application against the aims and priorities above. We may contact you to ask some additional questions.
Our panel of independent volunteers will consider the applications and decide which to fund. The panel’s decision is final.
If your application does not meet our criteria, or if the panel decide it is not a priority for funding, we will contact you to let you know. We aim to do this in late January or early February.
Please note that we expect to receive more applications than we are able to fund, so not every eligible application will be funded. In the last round of community grants, we were able to fund about 40% of the applications received.
Payment:
If the panel decide to award a grant, we will inform you by email in February and pay the first year’s allocation of the grant by BACS transfer. Years 2 and 3 will be paid following receipt of satisfactory interim progress reports.
Evaluation:
We’re keen to understand what difference our grants make, and to share good stories with our donors and supporters. We also want you to learn from delivering your project, and to share that learning with us and with others. Finally, we must ensure that funding has been appropriately spent, in line with your application and our terms and conditions. This is particularly important for the Moving On Up programme, where we want to understand whether SYCF can make a significant difference to the issue of young people’s employment by focusing our resources on this theme.
For this reason, we expect all organisations funded through the Moving On Up programme to measure and report on the outcomes achieved at the end of each year in an interim report, and at the end of the grant in a final end of grant report. This could include measuring and reporting on:
- The number of young people reporting an increase in personal aspirations and goals
- The number of young people reporting increased self-esteem and confidence
- The number of young people whose engagement in education/learning has improved
- The number of young people reporting increased interpersonal (social, communication and relationship) skills
- The number of young people reporting increased literacy and/or numeracy skills
- The number of young people who achieved an accredited qualification
- The number of young people who went into further and/or higher education
- The number of young people reporting that they feel better prepared for work
- The number of young people taking up work or volunteer placement/experience opportunities
- The number of young people who became self-employed or gained employment
This list is not exhaustive, these are just a few examples.
In the interim and end of grant reports we will also expect you to reflect on the progress achieved so far, unexpected challenges which have been faced, and what has been learned through the process.
We might also arrange to come and visit your project or contact you during the project to discuss your progress.
teacakeclub.org 