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Rural Community Needs Fund

Deadline: 09/12/2024
Location: Northamptonshire
Grant Amount: £5,000
Project Type: Rural needs

The Rural Community Needs Fund has been established following Northamptonshire Community Foundation’s campaign to ‘Shine a Spotlight on Rural Community Needs’, in order to champion the needs of rural communities. The aim of this fund is to address urgent needs to support rural communities address issues such as access to community transport, fuel poverty, refurbishment of community building and equipment, access to wellbeing and health services, activities and education services for young people and support for older people.

Grants awards will be up to £5,000, this can be used for service delivery or for capital projects, examples include:

  • Developing community networks – e.g. supporting local clubs, creating community hubs, providing community transport schemes
  • Improving the health and wellbeing of socially isolated people – e.g. opportunities for older people to become more physically active, providing mental health wellbeing activities, community first responders 
  • Refurbishing community assets to improve community use – e.g. updating village hall kitchen facilities, developing local playgrounds
  • Improving digital connectivity – e.g. installation of mobile signal boosters, run digital hubs to help develop skills and inclusion
  • Building community resilience – e.g. community larders 

Projects that won’t be funded include:

  • Purchase of buildings or land
  • Planning permission/building regulations (including design and planning consultants)
  • Building projects where planning permission is not yet in place
  • Projects taking place in a location where the purchase/rent agreement is not complete

Where projects involve refurbishing or building community assets, you must provide evidence that you either own the land or building, or that you have permission to carry out work from the owner and have a lease agreement for a minimum of five years.

To apply please complete an application form by Monday 9 December 2024.

A grants panel will meet in February, and you will receive an outcome in early March 2025. Therefore, prospective projects should not start before this time. 

Is my group eligible?

  • Charities, CIOs, constituted community groups, companies limited by guarantee and Parish Councils in Northamptonshire can apply for funding. Applications from Parish Councils must be for non-statutory activities that have a community benefit.
  • CICs can apply for funding, they must have a minimum of two unrelated Directors. Please note that as a general exclusion we do not fund social enterprises with persons with significant control (PSC)
  • Your project must be based in and benefit residents of rural communities. We classify rural communities as those with a population of less than 10,000.
  • You must have people volunteering to help with your activity, who are not part of your management committee
  • You must have a set of written rules or constitution that your group adheres to, that contains a dissolution clause. We can help advise you on how to do this especially if you are a new group
  • You must have safeguarding policies in place if relevant to your work and all groups must have an equalities policy in place

Please click here to view our Diversity Statement applicable to our grant awards.

Our funds and programmes are working towards the 10 UNSDGs we have adopted into our charitable activities. For more information please click here.

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    Deadline: Rolling programme
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    Deadline: 06/12/2024
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    Grant Amount: £5,000
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    Projects will be considered across a range of arts, culture and heritage based projects.

    Deadline: 06/12/2024
    Location: ​​​​​​​Northamptonshire
    Grant Amount: £500 - £5,000
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  • Constance Travis Community Endowment Fund ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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    Deadline: 06/12/2024
    Location: Northamptonshire
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  • Rural Community Needs Fund

    The aim of this fund is to address urgent needs to support rural communities address issues such as access to community transport, fuel poverty, refurbishment of community building and equipment, access to wellbeing and health services, activities and education services for young people and support for older people.

    Deadline: 09/12/2024
    Location: Northamptonshire
    Grant Amount: £5,000
    Project Type: Rural needs
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    Deadline: 03/01/2025
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    Deadline: 03/01/2025
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    Grant Amount: £5,000
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    Deadline: Rolling programme
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