Community Grant Fund

Community Grant Fund

About the Community Grant Fund

The Community Grant Fund is a £1 million capital grant scheme for town and parish councils/meetings and community organisations in the Harborough district.

The Fund is allocated between towns, large villages, medium villages, villages close to urban settlements and small/smaller villages across the Harborough district. The Community Grant Fund will strengthen working relationships between the council and its parishes, towns and communities, enabling delivery of projects and initiatives at a local level across the district.

All completed applications will be presented to the Cabinet Sub Committee Grants for consideration and decision. Applicants are welcome to attend Cabinet Grants Sub-Committee meetings. For applications over £25,000, this will be a requirement.

Please contact communitygrants@harborough.gov.uk if you have any queries about the Fund or the application process.

Who can apply for the Community Grant Fund?

Applications for the Community Grant Fund can be submitted by:

• Town/Parish Councils or a constituted Parish Meeting.
• Any constituted community/voluntary group who hold a bank account in the name of the organisation and have at least three years of accounts.

All applications outside of Market Harborough need to be submitted or supported by the Parish Council or Parish Meeting. This is to ensure that projects are meeting needs identified across the community and that a range of groups have an opportunity to apply. A separate application will need to be completed for each separate project that is being submitted.

The funding can only go to groups that are constituted and have held a bank account in the name of the group for three years – this relates to the group delivering the project. If your Parish Meeting does not meet this criteria, you can support an application on behalf of another group who does meet the criteria.

Outside Market Harborough, where the funding is for a community group other than the Parish Council or Parish Meeting, the group will need to obtain a letter of support from the Parish Council or Meeting before submitting an application form.

The contract for delivery will be directly with the group that will be delivering the project, which may be a Parish Council or Meeting or a different group. The Grant is for capital funding only and can be used to support other grants offered by the council, such as Section 106. Parishes/Towns can work together to submit a joint application, if preferred.

More than one application can be submitted subject to applications not exceeding the allocated grant amount for that parish or town. Grants must be spent within one year of receipt, unless agreement is given by the Council, to extend the spend-period. Any non-spent money must be returned to the Council.

All applications will be scheduled in for the next appropriate Cabinet Sub-Committee for Grants meeting.

Grant rounds

• Opens on 19 August 2024, closes on 20 October 2024
• Opens on 25 November 2024, closes on 16 February 2025
• Opens 24 March 2025, closes on 25 May 2025
• Opens 30 June 2025, closes on 24 August 2025

Cabinet Sub-committee Grants dates

The dates for the meetings to consider the Community Grant Fund are below:-

• 19th November 2024
• 18th March 2025
• 24th June 2025
• 23rd September 2025

Funding Allocation

A share of the £1m Grant has been allocated to parishes and towns based on the local plan. This gives more resource to the areas which were allocated greater growth in the last local plan.

The amounts have been apportioned to give some relative recognition of scale of growth but also spread to ensure as many communities as possible have access to some funds without a bidding process.

The allocation of grant expenditure can be found here

Parishes and towns can work together to use each of their allocation to prepare a joint application if there are projects that benefit more than one parish/community.

Apply for the Community Grant Fund

Before applying, please read the grant criteria below; you must meet these criteria before you can apply for a grant.

• Applications for capital funding will only be accepted from town and parish councils, constituted parish meetings and constituted community groups/organisations. Fees and charges are not covered, as the grant must be used for the direct benefit of the community.
• Parishes/Towns can work together to submit joint applications, but not exceeding their allocation.
• Before applications are submitted, all applicants must seek the views of their Ward Councillor(s) and include these within their application. This link is helpful for finding contacts: Find my councillor | Harborough District Council.
• In addtion, community organisations outside Market Harborough who wish to apply will also need to provide a letter of support from their Town/Parish Council or Meeting.
• In Market Harborough only, community organisations will first need to obtain a letter of support for their proposal from the Market Harborough Special Expenses Advisory Panel, consisting of the ten ward councillors, before the organisation submits an application. If this applies to you, please contact us as soon as possible so that we can assist in arranging a date for your proposal to be discussed at a Panel meeting.
• All applicants must hold a bank account in the name of the organisation and be able to provide at least three years of accounts if requested.
• Organisations must have Equality and Safeguarding Policies/Statements which they are able to attach to their application. If not, they agree to set these up as part of the application process.
• All completed applications will be presented to the Cabinet Grants Sub-Committee for consideration and decision.
• Grant applications can be used to support other grant opportunities such as S106, as a 'top-up'.
• More than one application can be submitted from each parish or town council, subject to applications not exceeding the total allocated grant amount for that parish or town
• Grants must generally be spent within one year of receipt, unless agreement is given by the Council to extend the spend-period. Any non-spent money must be returned to the Council.
• Applicants are welcome to attend Cabinet Grants Sub-Committee meetings. For applications over £25,000, this will be a requirement.

How to apply

All applications must be submitted through Grant Approval: GrantApproval.co.uk

If you have not used Grant Approval before, you will need to register an account. If you have used the system before for other grants, you will just need to log in. Once you are logged in, please select your local authority as 'Harborough' and then search all grants. Please select £1m Community Grant Scheme. Ensure you save your document when prompted as you progress through the form. As the option to save is only offered at specific intervals, we recommend preparing your answers and documents to load in advance and ideally completing your form in one sitting.

Applicants will need to demonstrate, in no more than 4,000 characters, how their project meets or aligns to at least one of the Council's priorities which are:

• Community leadership to create a sense of pride in our place
• Promoting health and wellbeing and encouraging healthy life choices
• Creating a sustainable environment to protect future generations
• Supporting businesses and residents to deliver a prosperous local economy

The application form will also ask the following questions:

• Please provide a brief description of your project and the activities involved, including timelines and milestones (3000 characters)
• Explain what difference the project will make, how you know there is a need for it and how the community will benefit e.g. will the funding increase capacity; widen the range of people using the facility; enhance the accessibility? Detail where the community which benefits comes from e.g - within a few streets of the project; the whole village/town, surrounding villages and towns; visitors from further afield? (4000 characters)
• Which specific group is your project aimed at? (2000 characters)
• How much funding are you applying for from this grant scheme, plus details regarding any other funding you may have secured and whether your project is part of a larger project (2000 characters)
• To ensure value for money for your project, you will be asked to attach one quote or catalogue price for values under £5k, and two quotes for higher values. Please list your Preferred Supplier/s and reasons
• Community organisations outside Market Harborough who wish to apply will need to provide a letter of support from their Town/Parish Council or Meeting. For Market Harborough only, this will be from the Special Expenses Advisory Panel. All applicants will be asked to attach a letter of the views of your Ward Member. For details of your Ward members, please see: Find my councillor | Harborough District Council
• You will also be asked to attach any proof of ownership/lease of the property/land related to the project, plus permission from the landlord, if leased.
• Your project plan and any other supporting documents must also be attached, together with your Equalities and Safeguarding Statement/Policy, if already in place