LEEDS TRANSITION FUND GRANTS PROGRAMME 2012
GRANTS GUIDELINES – ROUND 2
What is the Leeds Transition Fund?
The 2012 Leeds Transition Fund aims to build on the success of the 2011 programme, funded by
Leeds City Council, which provided approximately £140,000 of funding to third sector organisations
in Leeds who had been adversely affected by cuts in public sector funding.
The Fund was re-launched in June 2012, to once more help third sector groups in the “transition”
period – with potential reductions in funding, changes to the way public services are being
delivered and a number of new other initiatives that are being introduced. There is now a further
amount of money available for a second round of funding to deliver similar types of work, but with
slightly different qualifying criteria. Organisations who do not receive a grant from the first round
are eligible to reapply to the second round.
If you received a grant from Leeds Transition Fund in 2011/12 you must demonstrate clear
additional benefits as to why you need further funding. Priority will be given to organisations who
have not previously received a grant from the Fund. If you are successful in an application to round
1 of the Transition Fund 2012 you cannot apply for a grant from this second round.
The Grants Scheme
The Transition Fund is not intended to provide your organisation with a core grant to help towards
ongoing running costs nor is it intended to merely replace a loss in funding.
The aim of the Fund is to help third sector groups in this “transition” period. We know that many
organisations are looking to: re-assess and/or re-align the services they are delivering; prepare for
new commissioning opportunities; or look at other aspects of their work such as merger, closer
collaboration with another organisation etc. The aim of the Leeds Transition Fund is to help
organisations to become more resilient, agile and able to take advantage of opportunities
presented by a changing environment.
Applicants must clearly demonstrate why their organisation needs to change and how the funding
would help them to change. Grants will only be given to organisations that are committed to
looking at the kind of services they provide, and the way in which they are delivered, and are
prepared to consider making some kind of change. Further details can be found in Section 2
below.
1.
Who can apply to the Grants programme?
Your organisation needs to meet all the following criteria marked a-d below.
We are happy to accept bids on behalf of consortia. The application should provide details of all
organisations involved and should be made by a lead organisation which will be responsible for
ensuring activity is carried out and meets the terms and conditions of the grant. The criteria below
will be applied separately to each individual organisation.
a.
Type of organisation
You need to be one of the following:
 an unincorporated voluntary or community group with a constitution
 a registered charity
 an industrial and provident society
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a community interest company
a non-profit distributing organisation (such as a social enterprise that re-invests surpluses
for social benefit)
We will not accept applications from
 statutory organisations such as a school or local authority including statutory organisations
that have charitable status
 individuals or sole traders
 organisations that make a surplus or profit which is not reinvested for social benefit
 groups applying on behalf of another organisation (other than for consortia bids)
b.
Location
You should be based in the Metropolitan District of Leeds and providing services for local people
or, if located outside of the city, be able to demonstrate that the majority of your work involves
specifically providing services for people in Leeds.
c.
Type of activity
We will fund groups whose primary activity is in delivering frontline public services (in Leeds) in
one or more of the following areas:
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health, wellbeing and social care
homelessness and housing support
education and training
crime reduction including offender rehabilitation
employability and skills
children, young people and families
older people
advice services (including debt counselling, legal advice etc)
The grants programme is not open to organisations primarily providing infrastructure support to
other third sector organisations i.e. where the majority of your work is providing information, advice,
training and other support that helps voluntary and community groups. Groups providing
infrastructure support as part of their overall work programme can apply as long as at least 50% of
their work is in frontline service delivery and the request for funding is to support that area of their
work. Forums/ Networks can apply for a grant as long as they meet the other programme criteria.
d.
Income levels
You will need to demonstrate:
 Your total income for 2011-12 was between £25,000 and £1,000,000.
 Your free reserves need to be less than, or equal to, 6 months running costs for your
organisation. This is to ensure that we can make the greatest impact through this funding
by targeting organisations where their transition to a new funding environment may be most
at risk. By free reserves, we mean reserves that are not restricted, designated or set aside
for a specific purpose. However, we reserve the right to include designated / set aside
reserves in the calculation if we feel it is appropriate to do so, e.g. if there is no evidence
that designated reserves will be spent in a reasonable time period.
 You have audited or approved annual accounts that are no more than 15 months old.
NB – there is no need to evidence any reduction in funding to qualify for a grant from the second
round of Transition Fund 2012 but we would expect organisations supported to have had to adjust
to a change in funding circumstances and this should be reflected in your application.
Types of Application
2.
The aim of the Leeds Transition Fund is to help your organisation adapt to the changing funding
climate. It is not intended to replace lost income directly. Accordingly grants will be made to
organisations that primarily want to:
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Review their business model / organisational structure (cost might be incurred in looking at
new partnerships / collaborative work, merger)
Move towards provision of shared services, or premises
Re-assess the services they are currently providing to generate additional income or
efficiency (new business planning activities, using external consultants etc)
Re-design the services they are currently providing or look at developing new services (in
particular consultation activity with other providers to take advantage of efficiencies of joint
working) or to look at different delivery models for current services
Prepare for future commissioning opportunities (e.g. adopt new policies & procedures,
apply for quality accreditation, send staff on specific training etc)
The fundamental things that applications need to clearly demonstrate and evidence are:
 The need for change - why the organisation is at a critical point in its development
 The end goal – what will the organisation look like as a result of the Transition funding and
what will have been achieved
 The impact of the funding - on the organisation’s service delivery and to people using the
service
 A more sustainable organisation as a result of funding - e.g. increased income, reduced
costs, positive impact on service users etc.
The Fund is particularly keen to encourage partnerships and collaboration between organisations
to deliver greater efficiency in the third sector. This might not necessarily be through merger, but
could be by working more closely on specific projects, activities or initiatives or sharing the cost of
overheads in order to be more viable in the future. Consortia or partnership bids still need to be
submitted by a single organisation but the application should provide details of all organisations
involved. The criteria above will be applied separately to each individual organisation in terms of
turnover, position on reserves etc.
Ideas for consortia applications might include:
 organisations looking to work together more collaboratively (including consortia bidding)
who incur costs around amending policies and procedures, legal fees etc
 organisations working in a similar area who want to come together to discuss potential
collaborative approaches around a specific area of interest/ type of service delivery.
You are able to include some costs for bringing in external facilitators to help shape your ideas if
appropriate but you would not be able to incur this expenditure until your bid is approved.
Applicants must be able to spend the entire amount of the grant before the end of March 2013.
3.
Eligible / Ineligible activity
a.
Types of eligible activity
Grants will be made to organisations that primarily want to:
 review their business model / organisational structure (costs might be incurred in looking at
new partnerships / collaborative work, merger)
 move towards provision of shared services, or premises
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re-design the services they are currently providing or look at developing new services (in
particular consultation activity with other providers to take advantage of efficiencies of joint
working) or to look at different delivery models for current services
prepare for future commissioning opportunities (e.g. adopt new policies & procedures,
apply for quality accreditation, send staff on specific training etc)
The Fund will support building and moving costs as long as they are directly linked to the areas of
activity detailed above e.g. reviewing the use of your building due to requiring more or less space,
undertaking surveys or feasibility studies with regards to your current building or potential new sites
etc. We will not consider applications for costs solely relating to ongoing core costs of running a
building or for capital construction costs.
b.
Types of ineligible activity
The fund will not support the following:
 costs that would not result in a step-change in your organisational structure, service
delivery or impact on service users
 costs that would not enable your organisation to become more sustainable
 costs that have already been incurred before your bid is approved
 costs incurred from activity planned before your bid is approved and which should have
reasonably been budgeted for in advance
 items that only benefit an individual (other than training but then the focus of the course
needs to have broader benefits for the organisation)
 cost of activities that are not directly related to the above types of activity
 money to build up a surplus, loan repayments or contributions to general appeals
 contributions to core running costs not related to the change activities detailed above (we
will fund salary costs for core staff but only where they are involved in re-modelling or
development activities which is additional to standard work and not already funded through
other sources)
 costs to replace lost funding or for work which is deemed to be part of the standard
requirement of a job (e.g. salary costs for a managing director to review strategy unless this
is clearly additional work in a particular case)
4.
Application process
Feedback from the first round revealed that some organisations would like some help in beginning
to think about how they might change and adapt. Accordingly we will be arranging some special
briefing events in September which will be externally facilitated and will allow organisations to
explore some new ideas. Further details about these free events will be available soon. We would
strongly encourage organisations considering applying to the fund to attend one of these sessions,
although you do not have to delay submission of your application until after the sessions.
Potential applicants are advised to refer to Adult Social Care’s Market Position Statement and the
aims under the Child Friendly City banner as a guide to the type of activity which may support
Leeds City Council’s targets.
In order to apply for the Leeds Transition Fund, please download the application form and notes for
applicants from the Leeds Community Foundation website www.leedscf.org.uk/apply-for-grant.
When you submit your application we will also require the following supporting evidence:
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Copy of your constitution, terms of reference and contact details for management
committee members / trustees with cheque signatories identified
Audited / approved accounts that are no more than 15 months old
The deadline for the receipt of full applications to the grants scheme and all supporting information
is 5.00 pm on Friday 28th September. The grants panel will meet in October with the aim of
informing all groups by end October 2012. All grants awarded need to have been spent by 31st
March 2013.
A condition of any grant is that you provide ongoing monitoring information to Leeds City Council.
Grants will usually be paid in arrears, on receipt of satisfactory expenditure claims.
If you would like any further information please call Leeds Community Foundation on 0113 242
2426 or email info@leedscf.org.uk.
Or write to Leeds Community Foundation, 51a St Paul’s Street, Leeds LS1 2TE