Grant Priorities
We have developed our grant priorities help to bring clarity to the areas we support. Through them, we aim to address the challenges facing our communities and to maximise our impact in making Cumbria a place where everyone can thrive.
Our grant making will focus on:
Improving Lives, with four priority areas:
• Reducing Poverty
• Reaching Potential
• Improving Health
• Tackling Social Inequality
Strengthening Communities, with two priority areas:
• Nurturing Sense of Place
• Acting on Climate Change
Improving Lives
| Grant Making Priority | Helping people who are: | We will do this by helping organisations that: |
|---|---|---|
| Reducing Poverty: Providing opportunities to lift people out of poverty | • Living on low incomes • Experiencing unemployment and/or homelessness | • Provide advice and information • Support people to address their financial problems • Help with food and fuel poverty • Support people with housing and homelessness |
| Reaching Potential: Providing skills, education and training | • Requiring support through the early stages of parenthood and childhood • Leaving education or care without opportunities • Facing barriers to their personal or career development • Struggling or struggled in education due to circumstances or lack of support • Lacking confidence and aspirations | • Provide early intervention to develop improved support networks and family relationships • Develop young people’s skills and confidence • Help people overcome barriers to work or education • Help people grow and find opportunities through arts, cultural or creative activities • Offer skills, enterprise and training programmes to prepare people for a changing working world • Promote entrepreneurship |
| Improving Health: Helping people live healthier, happier lives. | • Wanting to live healthier, more active lives • Facing challenges due to disability • Needing support for unmet mental health needs | • Offer counselling and other therapies • Supporting interventions to reduce harmful behaviours • Reduce health inequality and improve life expectancy • Run health, wellbeing, sports or activity programmes • Support people with life-limiting conditions and disabilities • Improve dignity for older people |
| Tackling Social Inequality: Promoting equality and inclusion | • Facing barriers because of their age, disability, race, sexual orientation, gender identity or personal beliefs • Living with neurodiversity • Overcoming personal challenges | • Help people to rebuild their lives following a crisis, critical moment, trauma or abuse • Build social justice and equity • Tackle inequality and give greater voice to those most marginalised in our community |
Strengthening Communities
| Grant Making Priority | Helping people who are: | We will do this by helping organisations that: |
|---|---|---|
| Nurturing Sense of Place: Creating stronger and inclusive communities | • Socially isolated • Rurally isolated • Digitally excluded | • Run multi-use village halls and community centres in socially deprived and/or rural areas • Support meaningful and impactful volunteering • Create a shared sense of belonging for all groups in society • Improve digital connectivity and create digitally inclusive environments • Promote and support activities that make a positive difference to others or the environment (social action) and address barriers to participation • Improve access to community transport • Improve access and participation for underserved groups • Help people feel safe in their community |
| Acting on Climate Change: Taking local action to strengthen communities and people’s ability to be resilient and respond to climate change | • Actively engaging their communities and taking action locally to reduce carbon consumption • Directly affected by a climate emergency | • Are building community resilience • Help communities become greener and more biodiverse • Promote renewable energy and carbon reduction • Create community gardens and grow food • Help with wildlife conservation and recovery • Provide environmental education and training • Promote reuse and recycling • Share knowledge and awareness of the climate emergency and encourage more community-led climate action |
We are focussed on funding services that directly benefit people, placing greater emphasis on initiatives that deliver lasting benefits to the community, rather than one-off or short-term activity. We are prioritising efforts that directly help to reduce financial hardship, promote healthier lifestyles, increase aspirations, foster inclusion, and build community resilience.
We manage over 100 grant making funds; each have their own criteria, the majority of which align to these overarching grant making priorities.
These priorities have been influenced by the findings of our community needs reports which provide comprehensive insights into the critical issues impacting our county. They combine statistics, research, local expertise and knowledge from our grant making to assess community needs and guide a more effective philanthropic response.
Who and what we fund:
Each year we make hundreds of grants to organisations and individuals on behalf of our fundholders and supporters. We fund a diverse array of issues, with each fund having specific guidelines regarding eligibility and funding priorities.
We will continue to provide grants to individuals to help raise their aspirations and enhance their access to educational or vocational opportunities, as well as to support excellence in sports or the arts.
We have a strong focus on supporting grassroots community groups and small-to-medium-sized voluntary organisations. While we typically do not fund large UK-wide charities, we may consider them if they have established relationships in our area and the proposal demonstrates the potential for significant impact.
We will prioritise funding for services directly benefiting beneficiaries over capital projects and will focus on activities that provide a lasting benefit to the community, whether new or ongoing.
We are increasingly taking a more strategic, programmatic approach to our grant making, aimed at creating positive, systemic change by tackling the root causes of the challenges we face.
Funding Principles:
Our grant applicants, donors, fundholders and partners can expect the following from us:
• Providing longer term funding where we can
• Recognising that smaller, shorter-term grant-making remains crucial to support new and responsive, grassroots projects
• Embedding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Responding flexibly to changing circumstances and needs
• Using impact measurement and knowledge to inform practice and policy
• Highlighting community needs and encourage philanthropic support
• An open and trusting relational approach to grant making
• Supporting partnership and collaborative working
• Supporting innovation and entrepreneurial approaches
• Acting with urgency in times of crisis
• Timeliness and transparency in decision making
• Only asking relevant questions
• Taking a proportionate approach for applications requesting £2,000 or less
