AWARDS FOR ALL
The National Lottery Awards for All programme is one of the most prominent funders of school projects. Following a recent review, we caught up with Big Lottery Fund’s Head of Central Funding Julie Galano
T
he Big Lottery Fund is the largest distributor of National Lottery funding and has awarded £8.5billion
to projects across the UK since 2004. The most popular programme it runs is National Lottery Awards for All, which receives over 13,000 applications in England per year. Many of these applications are from schools, academies and school- related organisations such as PTAs. Schools are able to apply to the
Awards for All programme for between £300 and £10,000 to deliver community-led projects. We believe that strong, vibrant communities are built and renewed by the people living in them so we are targeting National Lottery funding at grassroots groups that truly involve the people they serve throughout the life of the project. In light of some recent changes to
the programme, here’s some support for schools and some things to be aware of when applying…
Funding priorities National Lottery Awards for All has three funding priorities and all projects must meet at least one of them. These are: bringing people together and building strong relationships in and across communities; improving the places and spaces that matter to
30 SPRING 2018 FundEd
communities; and enabling more working to address issues at the earliest possible stage. Julie Galano, Head of Central
Funding at the Big Lottery Fund, says: ‘It’s important that all groups involve the wider community in their project design, development and delivery. Please tell us how you’ve done this. We believe this will help your project to be better supported by the energy and strengths that exist within your community and it is more likely to be successful as a result. Schools are often at the very heart of the community, so they can sometimes be the best placed organisation to deliver such projects.’ Julie continues: ‘We’ve funded
some fantastic projects through Awards for All, however, to make sure that National Lottery funding gets to grassroots projects at the heart of their communities we have changed the focus of our funding. We are especially interested in hearing about projects that are shaped and driven by the people and communities they serve, which means that some of the projects that used to be funded by Awards for All may not be funded now.’ Successful projects from schools
will be able to demonstrate
to the wider community. Projects that appear to deliver expected activities of schools are not likely to meet our objectives, e.g. improvements to facilities, buildings and playgrounds; staff training; and equipment used in lessons.
Timing and logistics There is no closing date for National Lottery Awards for All, but we recommend that your application is submitted at least twelve weeks before the project is due to start, as it takes around ten weeks to reach a decision on applications, and a further two weeks to pay out if the application is successful. Julie adds, ‘We advise applicants
to read through our guidance before applying. Schools should take half-terms and holidays into account when deciding on the start dates for their project as we may have questions about the application during the assessment process. If we’re unable to get in touch with you, this could delay how quickly we can make a decision.’ The bank account should be in the
name of the school unless they’re using a Local Authority or Academy Trust bank account. Schools also need to provide their Department for Education number on the application form, along with their income from the last year, which we will verify.
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