Birmingham Fairer Futures Fund – Citywide Small Grants

To successfully receive a grant from this fund, applicants will need to clearly demonstrate the following:

• Innovative, new or additional services to address long-standing health and wellbeing inequalities
• An evidence-informed rationale for how your project will show impact on the fund priorities, patient behaviours, knowledge and/or clinical outcomes against one or more of the specific priorities for this fund

You can apply to this fund if you are one of the following:

• Registered charities
• Constituted Community groups
• Companies Limited by Guarantee with charitable aims
• Community Interest Companies*
• Co-operatives – registered Community Benefit Societies and registered Industrial and Provident Societies
• Social Enterprises

*Funding to Community Interest Companies and other non-charities may include conditions to restrict funding to charitable objectives only.

Our ambition is to award at least 50% of the funding to groups with an income level of under £1 million – as stated in applicants most recent accounts or financial statements. 

To make an application to this Fund, you need to apply via the Heart of England Community Foundation website.

• Please click here to begin your application to the fund. 

Important: Once you have started an application, you will be asked to select at least one of the fund’s key themes. Once you have selected your theme – you will be prompted to select at least one of the sub-priorities from your chosen theme. 

• Click here to access our application question support document.

Successful applicants will be required to provide a quarterly written report to the Heart of England Community Foundation and to take part in:

• Monthly monitoring meetings
• Additional monitoring in partnership with an external evaluation partner administering online base line surveys and collection of participant data. Budgeting for proposed projects should allow for this requirement up to approximately 15% of the requested grant amount.
• Participate in a wider evaluation of the programme and impact outcomes (details TBC)
• Yearly grant review to assess project delivery and impact
• Complete an End of Grant Monitoring Report at the end of the delivery
• Provide case studies

Projects will be expected to have a clear rationale for how they will achieve the change in outcome proposed. ​

Individual outcomes should be measured using standardised methods. The Birmingham Measurement Toolbox Birmingham public health measurement toolbox | Birmingham City Council has been developed to support this. ​

Please note that whilst there may be projects for which the measurement toolkit is not appropriate (such as those that aim to work indirectly with the public e.g. through training and connecting), these will nonetheless require robust evaluation measures.

• Direct replacement of statutory obligation and public funding
• Promotion of religious or political activities (we can fund religious or political organisations if their project benefits the wider community and does not include religious or political content)
• Groups with significant financial free reserves
• Retrospective grants
• Contribution to endowment fund, payment of deficit funding or repayment of loans
• Overseas travel or expeditions
• Medical research and equipment for statutory or private healthcare
• General appeals
• National Charities who don’t have an existing strong local connection/presence
• Animal welfare, unless the project benefits people (e.g. disabled riding schemes)
• Statutory work in educational institutions
• Sponsored or fundraising events or groups raising funds to distribute to other causes
• Schools, Churches, Parish Councils or PTA’s unless community benefit is demonstrated

To ensure that yor application is eligible and that you are able to progress you must be able to provide proof of:

• Your organisation / company has a management committee / board of trustees / board of directors with at least 3 unrelated people as members, a list of those directors will be required showing who has bank authorisation.
• A written constitution / articles / set of rules.
• A copy of your most recent annual accounts or financial records showing your organisation’s balance of funds, income and reserves.
• A bank account in the name of the organisation with at least two unrelated signatories
• A bank statement from the last 3 months.
• Up to date safeguarding policy in line with the most recent legislation (if you will be working with children or vulnerable adults)*
• Up to date Equal opportunities policy in line with the most recent legislation*
• Quotes for capital items over £500.

** Applicants should refer to our online support and FAQ’s as insufficient supporting documentation will result in a delay or rejection of your application

Projects working towards the Best Start in Life theme should select one of the following sub-priorities:

• Children, particularly those in care and children living in low-income households, via activities that support the uptake of vaccinations; uptake of healthy start vouchers; reduce infant mortality and hospital admissions caused by injuries and asthma
• Young adults – including reducing conception rates in those aged below 18 and interventions to improve mental health
• Women – including projects encouraging breastfeeding; develop parenting skills; uptake of long-acting reversible contraceptives; uptake of antenatal screening; continuity of maternal services and reproductive health particularly for those from deprived and ethnic minority backgrounds

Projects working towards the Healthier lives in communities theme should select one of the following sub-priorities:

• People living with long-term conditions and disabilities
• Men, women, children, families and those from deprived and ethnic minority backgrounds – activities aimed at improving nutrition, reducing sugar and salt intake and increasing physical activity; reducing the prevalence of diabetes and cardiovascular illnesses and related admissions to hospitals
• Manual workers, people with long-term mental-health conditions, and the unemployed – through smoking cessation reducing the prevalence of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and related admissions to hospital

Projects working towards the Better outcomes through earlier intervention and treatment theme should select one of the following sub-priorities:

• Ethnic minority backgrounds including African, Caribbean and South Asian Communities – through activities to increase uptake of NHS health checks particularly for hypertension, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and mental health
• Deprived communities – through activities increasing immunisation uptake; uptake of cancer screening; and increasing dementia diagnosis in the under 65s
• Heterosexual women – through activities preventing and treating blood borne viruses (BBV) such as HIV and Hepatitis

Projects working towards the Empowering and connecting communities theme should select one of the following sub-priorities:

• LBGTQ+ and people with long-term conditions and disabilities – through activities improving mental health; reducing social isolation; supporting adults with learning disabilities into employment; increasing uptake of annual health checks; reducing suicide and self-harm rates
• Migrant communities, ex-offenders, gypsy, Roma and travellers, and those with English as a second language – through activities that improve health literacy
• Carers – increasing uptake of annual health checks