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Islington Town Hall will be closed from Thursday 2 to Monday 6 January 2025 for planned maintenance. Registrar services will be reopen on Monday 6 January 2025.

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Borough of Sanctuary Grants application guidance

This guidance will support your organisation to make an application for a Borough of Sanctuary grant - read it carefully to check your eligibility before you apply.

Funding

The total amount of funding available for the Borough of Sanctuary grant programme is £500,000. The amount of funding you can apply for depends on the structure of your organisation.

Small grants of £1,000 to £3,000

This is for small groups, defined as constituted or unincorporated organisations. This could include:

  • volunteer committees
  • tenant and resident associations
  • street associations
  • gardening groups
  • ‘friends of’ groups.

Up to £20,000 of the total funding will be allocated to these groups. If all the funding is not awarded it will be reallocated to the main grants.

We particularly encourage refugees, migrants or people with experience of seeking asylum to apply for small grants through this route.

Main grants of £5,000 to £50,000

This is for registered charities and non-profits such as:

  • Community Interest Companies or Charitable Incorporated Organisations where 100% of surplus income is reinvested into the organisation
  • schools
  • faith organisations.

Individuals or unconstituted groups

We cannot give grants directly to unconstituted groups or individuals. If you have an idea for a project but you are not part of an organisation you can approach a registered charity with your idea and work with them. The charity can help you to apply and hold the funding for you if you are successful.

If you would like more guidance on this or help finding a suitable organisation, contact BOS@islington.gov.uk.

Charities helping individuals or unconstituted groups

Charities holding funds on behalf of an individual or unconstituted group can claim up to 10 per cent of the project cost for for time spent administering and supporting. The charity can also submit their own separate application to the Borough of Sanctuary grant scheme.

Joint bids or consortium

Organisations are welcome to submit joint bids or apply as a consortium if there is a clear partnership agreement in place, but you can only apply once per organisation. If you are working in partnership there should be a formal partnership agreement between your organisations.

If you are not based in Islington

Organisations should be based in Islington. But national or London-based charities can also apply if you plan on running your project at a venue in the borough and can show that most of the beneficiaries live in or have a strong connection to Islington.

What you can apply for

Organisations can apply for a new or existing project and include up to 25% core costs (‘overheads’) including contributions to management salaries, premises rent, training, insurance and utilities.

All proposals must be open access and free for all refugees, migrants and people seeking asylum and people with experience of forced migration, including people from Afghanistan and Ukraine. 

The majority of beneficiaries should be based in or have a connection to Islington.

Projects can run for up to two years (a maximum of £3,000 for small grants or £50,000 for main grants across the two years). Include the duration of the project in your application form. 

What the funding can’t be used for

  • Personal benefit.
  • Projects that only benefit refugees, migrants and people seeking asylum from one country. 
  • Projects that are already funded by the London Borough of Islington.  
  • To provide grant funding and/or to subcontract to other organisations (except if you are applying on behalf of an individual or group of residents as a trusted charity). 
  • Religious activity or activities restricted to people of one religion - faith groups are welcome to apply for projects that are open to people of all religions and do not include religious content.  
  • Campaign or lobbying work.
  • Fundraising.
  • Research projects with no operational aspect.  
  • Capital costs. 
  • Retrospective costs (if the project has already happened). 
  • Supporting individual students (schools can apply for project funding where the project will benefit a group of students or parents, like an extracurricular activity).
  • Costs for individuals that should be covered by statutory services, such as housing and social care.
  • To pay volunteers or people who are not paid employees for their time.

Advice for your application

The panel's advice for how best to complete your application: "We want to support a range of projects across the borough that can achieve our aims of making Islington a welcoming place for all, supporting people to feel connected and integrated. We want to see projects that make a real difference and can show they are making a positive impact.

We ask all applicants to consider how their project will be accessible and inclusive, including support for disabled participants, and how they will engage newly arrived people with limited or no English language. We also ask applicants to think about how they will work with communities to understand cultural needs and develop activities and projects together.

When you are writing your application remember to:

  • use plain English and avoid jargon or unexplained acronyms
  • read the panel priorities (below and on the main grants page) and aims to understand what is important to us
  • clearly explain what you want to achieve with your project, what you will do and how you will show impact
  • include some evidence to show us how your project will help people, and how you will measure this
  • think about how you can tell a story and bring your project to life. You could even include images of your projects.

Panel priorities and aims

Priorities

The panel came together to discuss priorities for the grant and explore ways that groups could work to meet the aims of integration and connection. The panel would like to see a range of projects and activities funded and would particularly like to see applications that address:

  • Advice and support - This could include legal, medical, housing or other advice, signposting and support to access services.
  • Learning and upskilling - Including access to education and training, language courses and activities, and support to access employment.
  • Bringing people together - Activities that bring different communities and ages together, including newly arrived and established communities, to share cultures, celebrations and festivals, build understanding and develop relationships.
  • Creative connections - Creating opportunities for people to connect, learn and find joy. This could be anything from arts and cultural projects, community crafts, cooking and food, to gardening and connecting with nature, to sports and other opportunities to get active.
  • Mental health and wellbeing – Including mental health and trauma support and therapy, as well as activities that support wellbeing.
  • Community involvement – Support for people to access volunteering opportunities and get involved to support their community.
  • Targeted support for groups with specific needs – For example, children, young people, women, families with young children, people experiencing social isolation or other groups with specific needs or challenges.

Panel aims

Integration is a process of everyone working together to help refugees, migrants and people seeking asylum feel welcomed and supported. Creating a welcoming environment, providing advice, support and opportunities for people so they can move forward with their lives. You feel integrated in society and your community when you are able to communicate and be understood by others, when you understand how things work and where to go when you need support or advice, able to access employment, education, and healthcare.

Connection is coming together to meet new people and build ties across communities, working together to create understanding and solve challenges. It means sharing and celebrating different cultures, being open to learn from each other and valuing what everyone has to bring. It means feeling at home. You feel connected when you feel supported and welcomed by people around you. When you can get involved, feel part of communities, and can contribute and make change for others.

Assessment process

When we receive your application, it will go through three stages of assessment. 

  1. Council officers will screen applications to ensure they meet the minimum criteria (pages 1-4 of the application form). All applications that meet the criteria and the aims of the grant will be passed on to the Borough of Sanctuary panel.
  2. The Borough of Sanctuary panel will review the applications and make their recommendations to the council. 
  3. Final checks will be completed by the responsible council officer to ensure all organisations are compliant with the funding guidelines and aims of the grant.

Application scoring

Your application answers will be scored zero to five. The score for each answer holds a different amount of importance to your final assessment. For example, your score for question two is worth more to the final assessment than your score for question one. This is called 'weighting'.

Question  Weighting  Scoring 
1 20% 0 to 5 
2 40% 0 to 5
3 30% 0 to 5
4 10% 0 to 5

Your staff

Islington Council is a Living Wage Funder. This means we seek to ensure that all voluntary sector jobs that are wholly or partially funded by an Islington Council grant pay at least the London Living Wage.

To receive funding your organisation must pay all staff the Living Wage Foundation’s London Living Wage as a minimum, and must implement annual living wage adjustments to staff pay/salaries as soon as possible and within six months of the annual living wage announcement in October.

  • All staff and volunteers involved in the project should have the appropriate safeguarding training and level of DBS check.
  • Staff providing immigration advice should be known to the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC).
  • Staff teaching ESOL classes should hold a recognised UK teaching qualification.
  • Clinical staff at organisations offering therapeutic support should hold the appropriate professional qualifications, registrations and accreditations. 

Supporting documents

You will need to provide us with some supporting documents as part of the application process. These are: 

  • constitution
  • list of board members and senior management staff
  • copy of public liability insurance
  • copy of employers liability insurance (if this applies to you)
  • safeguarding children policy (if working with children)
  • safeguarding adults policy (if working with adults)
  • annual audited accounts for 2023/24, or accounts signed by your organisation’s chair and treasurer
  • financial management accounts for the last quarter
  • copy of most recent bank statement (dated within the last three months).

We will prioritise funding organisations who do not hold a large amount of unrestricted reserves unless there is a clear reason for holding them.  

Grant agreements

We will inform you in writing if your application is successful or unsuccessful. If you are successful, you will be required to sign a grant agreement with Islington Council.

Payment will be made in two parts - half at the beginning of the project and half after the first monitoring period if we determine the grant is being spent as it should be and in line with your proposal.

Projects must start within three months of receiving the funding.

Feedback

If your application is unsuccessful and you would like feedback, you can request this and a council officer will arrange to give you feedback on behalf of the panel. 

Monitoring and publicity

Organisations will be required to submit at least two monitoring forms, depending on the length of your project. There will be at least one monitoring form halfway through the funding period and one at the end of the funding period.

You will be visited by a council officer at least once during the project lifecycle to see how it is progressing.

A member of the council’s communications team may also request to attend the visit to capture photos/video and speak to you about your project for our external communications.

Application dates

  • Applications open on Wednesday 15 January 2025. Send your application by email to BOS@islington.gov.uk.
  • The deadline for applications is midnight on Wednesday 26 February 2025. We will not accept applications that we receive after the deadline.
  • Decisions will be made between March and May 2025 and we will tell organisations our decision before June 2025.

If you have further questions, are unsure about your eligibility or need more guidance, email BOS@islington.gov.uk.

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