Transition Fund
Transition Fund
Up to £100 million available
Open to charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises
Enabling civil society organisations delivering high quality public
services to be more resilient, agile and able to take
opportunities presented by a changing funding environment
Big Lottery Fund
in England
Awards for All
£300 - £10k
Reaching Communities
£10k - £500k
Jubilee People’s Millions
£20k - £60k
Parks for People
£250k - £5m
International
£50k - £500k
www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
What’s it all about?
Civil society organisations, which
deliver high quality public services,
are more resilient, agile
and able to take opportunities
presented by a changing funding
environment
Who can apply?
You must be one of the following organisations:
 a registered charity
 a voluntary and community unincorporated
charitable association
 a community benefit society registered as an
industrial and provident society
 a community interest company
 an organisation of another type if you operate as
a social enterprise and principally reinvest your
surpluses for social benefit
Which public
services?
 health and social care
 homelessness
 education and training
 welfare to work/employment services
 children and families
 debt counselling and legal advice
 offender rehabilitation
Financial criteria
• You have approved annual accounts, no more than 12 months old
• Your total income for that year was between £50,000 and £10
million
• At least 60% of total income came from taxpayer-funded sources
• At least 50% of total income spent delivering the public services
• You have evidence, or significant reason to believe, that you will
experience a reduction of at least 30% of the taxpayer-funded
income you receive for the public services
• Your free reserves could pay for your organisation’s total
expenditure for no more than six months
Grant Size
 Grants between £12,500 and £500,000
 You can apply for up to 50% of the reduction in taxpayer-funded
income
 Mainly revenue funding - up to £5,000 of capital
 For activities that focus on the change and transition needed to
lead to the programme outcome:
Civil society organisations, which deliver high quality public
services, are more resilient, agile and able to take opportunities
presented by a changing funding environment
Example
Organisation X has an income of £1,000,000
It receives £600,000 from taxpayer funded sources
Spends £500,000 on the public services
Loss of £150,000 (30% of £500,000)
Maximum grant size £75,000 (50% of £150,000)
At least 30% loss in
At least 60% of total At least 50% of total
Max Grant is 50% of the
taxpayer-funded
income from taxpayer- income spent on the
loss in taxpayer funded
income spent on public income spent on public
funded sources
public services
services
services
£150k
£75k
£600k
£500k
What will it pay for?
The majority of activities should be change activities and could
include for example:
 developing and redesigning existing and new services
 restructuring or moving to a different business model, including
redundancy costs where necessary
 the costs associated with moving services to or from other
organisations
 the costs of developing new partnerships, alliances, mergers
and/or shared services
 staff training
 getting expert advice and support.
Assessment
Incomplete applications
Assessment:
need
Reduction
outcomes
making a successful transition
Free reserves
Total income
What you should tell us
Need
Why you need transition funding
The impact on your end users of the public services you provide
What your future market looks like
Outcome
How your organisation will meet the programme outcome
Your vision of how your organisation will look after the transition
Making a successful transition
How will you make a successful transition
Relevant skills and experience
The services offered during and after your transition
Notify us of any de minimis State Aid received in the previous three
financial years
Example
• Organisation Y is heavily dependent on public sector funding and has been
warned it faces significant reductions in that funding
• Without public sector funding the organisation is no longer sustainable in
its current structure
• However, it knows there will be opportunities in the future and the public
services it delivers are of a high quality
• It wants to develop more diverse income streams and become a viable
social enterprise
Example
Transition Fund could fund:
• Creating a business plan to develop partnerships and secure funding
• Redundancy costs
• Staff training to ensure the organisation had the right skills to complete a
successful transition
• Advice and training to develop new reporting and monitoring processes to
better evidence impact
Transition Fund cannot:
• Pay for staff salaries to continue to deliver existing services and reduce the
need for redundancies
• Replace lost income from public bodies until new opportunities may be
available
Timescales
• Send us your application no later than noon on 21 January 2011
• We expect to award and pay up to £10 million of grants by the end
of March 011
• Remaining awards will be made by the end of May 2011
• All payments will have been made by July 2011
• You must spend your grant by 31 March 2012
If you’re successful
• Separate bank account (except a registered charity)
• Awards made between March and May 2011
• You may need to send us more information
E.g. firmer evidence of reductions in taxpayer-funded
income if you were unable to in January
• You must spend the grant and send report by end
March 2012
Next steps
• Take a look at:
www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/transitionfund
• We will update questions and answers after the events
• Use the eligibility checklist on the website to ensure this
is the right programme for you
• Send us your application before noon on 21 January
2011
• Ensure you send us all the supporting information
• Please complete a feedback form today – and use it to
let us know whether you are likely to apply