Community groups can apply for a grant of £5,000 and under to support activities that will reduce social and/or economic inequality for Cambridge residents with the greatest need.
You can apply for funding for:
- activities that help people be more active
- activities improve access to arts and culture
- activities that bring communities together
- activities that reduce poverty
- activities that reduce loneliness and social isolation
Activities can either be open to all Cambridge residents and those living in particular area of Cambridge.
The £5,000 and under fund replaces the Area Committee Grants and builds on the small grants programme of up to £2,000 introduced in 2023/24. You should also refer to the Community Grants over £5,000 fund to make sure that you are clear on which fund to apply to and the application deadline date. You cannot apply for this grant if you have applied for a larger grant of more than £5,000.
You can apply for £5,000 and less – this can be for a single activity or split between multiple activities with a combined maximum total of £5,000.
There will be two funding rounds for grants for activities taking place in 2025/26. You can only apply to one funding round each year. Contact us if you are unsuccessful in the first round and would like to apply to the second round
Round one launches on 26 November 2024. The deadline to apply will be 14 January 2025.
We will host a webinar on 3 December 2024. You can book a face-to-face appointment on 4 December 2024 if you would like to discuss your activity and completing the application form. We strongly recommend that you attend one of these sessions to ensure you are familiar with all the changes to the grant.
Funding will be awarded from April 2025 and must be spent by 31 March 2026.
Round two launches on 23 April 2025. The deadline to apply will be 3 June 2025.
We are offering bookable face to face appointments on 7 May 2025 and the webinar from round one will be available to watch online.
Funding will be awarded from July 2025 and must be spent by 31 March 2026.
Available funding is subject to the confirmation of the Council’s budget in February 2025. Eligibility does not guarantee funding. We expect a high demand for this funding, so might not be able to award the full amount you request.
Eligibility
You must demonstrate that your group’s activity will reduce social and/or economic inequality for the people who take part.
The activity should mainly benefit people living in Cambridge. It’s fine for people from elsewhere to take part, but we can only provide funding for residents that live inside the city boundary.
We will fund the direct costs of running the activity and will consider a realistic and proportionate share of your organisation’s overheads.
Group eligibility
Your group must be set up for charitable or philanthropic purposes. It must meet one of the following criteria.
- A constituted not-for-profit organisation such as:
- a registered charity
- a company limited by guarantee
- an unincorporated association or club
- a community interest company
- a charitable incorporated organisation
- A group of local residents who keep simple financial records and have a dual-controlled bank account
- A partnership of constituted groups and local residents
Your group must meet the following conditions or be actively working towards meeting them.
- You must have a constitution or set of rules defining your aims and procedures
- You must decide policy and overall management practice through a committee of at least three unrelated, elected, unpaid volunteers. By ‘unrelated’ we mean people who are not immediate family members, married couples or civil partners, or people living at the same address
- You must meet the needs of Cambridge residents and be open to all eligible people
- You must have structures in place to manage your affairs efficiently, hold regular meetings to plan and monitor activities, keep meeting minutes, and circulate information to group members
- You must meet the legal responsibilities of an employer, if relevant
- You must recruit and support volunteers appropriately
- You must adopt appropriate health and safety policies and practices before any funding will be awarded, including:
- risk assessments for activities
- safeguarding measures for children and vulnerable adults, if appropriate to the activity
- You must adopt appropriate data protection, environmental, and equality and diversity practices if your application is successful
- You must keep proper financial records and show that financial help is needed
- You must have a group bank account or be taking steps to identify an organisation that could hold the funds for you
Groups we cannot fund
We cannot award funding to:
- individual applicants
- organisations that were set up or are managed wholly or partly by a statutory organisation
- groups based outside the UK
- groups that operate for private gain
- groups that are connected with any political party, involved in party politics or promote any political party or view
- uniformed groups
- groups that have not complied with the monitoring requirements for any grant previously received from us
- groups seeking a grant for religious instruction or worship
- groups with surplus funds that could be used for the activity
Example activities: Helping people to be more active
- Improving physical activity levels for people who are currently inactive.
- Swimming for people who cannot swim more than 25m without help.
- Informal sport and recreation.
- Approaches to tackling obesity.
- Reducing inequality in opportunity to be physically active, for example through low income, disability, gender or cultural need.
We will only consider funding equipment as part of a fully costed activity that meets our requirements.
Example activities: Improving access to arts and cultural activities
Our broad and open definition of arts and culture includes music, drama, visual art, film, and other creative activity.
- Activities for groups of people who face barriers to accessing art, to enable participation.
- Inclusion activities to bring people together to improve mental and physical wellbeing.
- Targeted projects to improve access to the arts, including activities for minority ethnic groups and people with disabilities or on a low income.
Example activities: Bringing communities together
- Activities that reduce social isolation and improve wellbeing, excluding clinical health activities.
- Activities that bring people from different communities together to improve and develop cohesion and integration.
- Activities that reduce inequality, particularly for those on a low income.
- Activities that bring people together to have a voice and to be able to influence services that affect them.
Example activities: Providing activities to reduce poverty
- Activities to support people on a low income to maximise their income and minimise their costs, including advice about debt, finances and benefits and support to reduce energy and water costs.
- Activities that promote and direct people to sources of affordable finance and can demonstrate the accessible, affordable offer available.
- Activities that focus on raising skills and employability for people on low incomes which are not the remit of others and have clearly defined and measurable outcomes.
- Activities to help people on low incomes get online and develop digital skills to access services and benefits, communicate with friends and family, or to develop digital skills needed in the workplace.
- Activities to support people experiencing food poverty.
- Activities to promote volunteering, particularly for residents on a low income.
- Activities to improve physical and mental health outcomes for people on low income, such as those that focus on promoting physical activity, healthy diets and healthy lifestyles; and outreach advice services for residents experiencing mental health issues associated with living in poverty or on a low income.
- Activities to address specific barriers experienced by groups of people more likely to experience poverty and social isolation, including older people, children and young people, low-income families, disabled people, minority ethnic people, women, and LGBTQ+ people.
We will not fund clinical activities for residents with physical or mental health needs.
Example activities: Providing activities that reduce loneliness and social isolation
- Activities which enable people to meet regularly to develop relationships within their local community.
- Activities for groups more likely to experience social isolation.
Activities that we cannot fund
We cannot fund activities and support that are the remit of another statutory organisation. This includes:
- Cambridgeshire County Council, including:
- children’s centres, childcare, school curriculum activities
- breakfast and afterschool clubs, general youth clubs
- education for young people aged 18 and under,
- young offenders,
- personal care, carer’s groups, day centres, older people’s lunch clubs
- literacy and library, community education
- health authorities or services, including:
- clinical health or issues groups and projects
- medical support groups, counselling or therapy
- activities for people in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction
- other authorities and partnerships, including:
- Homelessness
- Community safety (victims of domestic violence, reducing crime and anti-social behaviour)
- immigration advice
- uniformed groups
- toddler and playgroups
We cannot fund:
- apprentice schemes
- language or cultural classes
- activities that are for religious instruction or worship, or involve proselytising. We will not fund trips to religious places of worship. Religious groups can apply for non-religious activities but will need to demonstrate that the activity is inclusive to all faiths and religions and does not promote a religious view in any way
- activities that promote or appear to support a political party, or publicity that appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party
- personal care services or funding for individuals
We cannot fund activities that:
- have already happened or are for any spending commitments made before the date of the grant agreement being signed or that will take place before 1 April 2025 or after 31 March 2026. Round two applicants cannot apply for activities that take place before July 2025.
- have expensive food and refreshments that are not integral to the activity’s aims
- have high or disproportionate administrative or publicity costs and are not good value for money
- include the hire of a bar or the purchase of alcohol
- will lead to private, personal or commercial profit
- are for fundraising purposes, including for charity shops
- are for people who can afford to pay
- are competitive
- are held outside Cambridge, unless there is no suitable provider in the city
- include trips outside the United Kingdom or other unreasonable locations. We will only consider funding activities that include entrance fees and the use of cars in exceptional circumstances
- include equipment, unless it is a small part of a fully costed activity.
- include gifts or prizes
- have publicity that is not related to an eligible activity and is not reasonably costed
We cannot fund staff, self-employed people or contractors whose wages or salary exceed those agreed for city council workers. However, we encourage organisations to pay or to work towards paying the Real Living Wage.
Further requirements
Activities on council-owned land
You must have permission from the landowner if your activity is taking place on land that you do not own.
For activities on city-council owned land you must complete a ‘statement of intent’. You should allow four weeks for us to decide whether to allow it to take place.
Apply for a grant
You will be able to access the online application from 26 November 2024. Before you complete the online form, please make sure you have read all the guidance above and have your accompanying documents ready to upload.
You must send us:
- A spreadsheet showing the activity’s costs and sources of income
- A copy of your most recent annual accounts, if your organisation is more than one year old
- Full organisation current-year budget
- Full organisation budget for your next financial year, if different to the spreadsheet showing your activity costs and sources of income
- A copy of a bank statement for your organisation’s account from the last three months, showing your organisation’s name, account number and sort code. You should redact/block out transactions that contain personal information about an individual.
- A signed copy of your organisation’s governing document (for example, your constitution or set of rules)
- A copy of your insurance
- Health and safety policy, including a risk assessment
- Equal opportunities or equality and diversity policy
- Child and/or adult safeguarding policy, if children or vulnerable adults can participate in your activity
- Environmental or green policy
- Data protection policy
If you do not have some or all of the above policies contact us to discuss this further, or if you need help developing appropriate policies see the Further Support and Information section.
Next steps
You will receive an automated email acknowledging receipt of your application soon after you submit it.
We will assess all the applications we receive by the closing date. We will tell round one applicants whether their application has been successful by the end of February 2025 and round two applicants by the end of June 2025. You will have no right to appeal against the decision if you are not awarded a grant. All awards will be subject to the approval of the overall council budget in February 2025.
We will pay round one awards from 1 April 2025 and round two awards from July 2025, after grant agreements are signed and any other conditions are met, such as returning monitoring reports from previous grants.
Reporting back on your activity
You will be provided with a monitoring report to tell us what you did with the grant and what difference it made to the participants. You must return it one month after the completion of your activity and by 30 April 2026 at the very latest.
Monitoring reports should be accompanied by supporting evidence such as publicity material and photographs. We may request further information.
Please keep all receipts and invoices related to the activity as we may ask to see these.
Any award that is not spent or evidenced for the purpose allocated will have to be repaid in full.
Further information and support
Get in touch to register for the webinar or book a face to face appointment to discuss whether your activity and group are eligible for a grant, or if you have any questions about your application.
Cambridge Council for Voluntary Service can help you complete your application form or develop policies. They can provide template policies if your group does not have them yet. CCVS can also advise how to gather and present financial information and share examples of good practice and procedures.
You can also contact the Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum, who work with people from minority ethnic communities, for advice or support in helping you complete your application.
Privacy notice
The Grants Team collects personal data for the following activities:
- To respond to grant enquiries
- To process grant applications
- To process awards, payments and grant agreements
- To monitor grant awards and ensure public money has been spent for the purpose allocated
- To provide information about Council grants and voluntary sector support and activities
We collect names, addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers (mobile, landline and work numbers), and photographs (relating to funded projects) via online, phone, face to face, or other written interactions.
We process your data with a view to entering into a contract with the organisation you represent.
Information on your rights regarding your personal data you provide us is available at www.cambridge.gov.uk (search for Privacy Notice).
We will not share your personal data with external agencies or individuals. However, we may process the information you provide to prevent and detect fraud in any of our systems and may supply information to government agencies, law enforcement agencies, internal audit, regulators or other external bodies for such purposes. We do not routinely process any information about you outside the European Economic Area (EEA), except in rare cases, where we use all appropriate safeguards.
We only keep your personal information as long as necessary. Please refer to our Retention Policy for more information.
We will review mailing lists annually. You can contact us at any point if you no longer want to be informed about grant opportunities.
We will delete enquiry information which did not result in an application after one year.
If you have a query regarding your rights please contact the Data Protection Officer who can be contacted by emailing infogov@3csharedservices.org or you can write to the council and mark your letter for the attention of the Data Protection Officer. Alternatively, you can call 01223 457000.
You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).