Applying to 'Awards for All'
We recently met with our friends at the National Lottery to discuss how we can help local VCSE organisations get more funding. They told us that a major problem is the number of applications they receive that don’t follow the guidance and so can’t be funded.
To help with this, we’ve worked with them to compile a brief guide to help you to apply to the National Lottery Community Fund’s ‘Awards for All’ programme. It outlines some common mistakes that groups make when they are applying to ‘Awards for All’, as well as giving some advice about how to make your application the best that it can be.
What is “Awards for All”?
‘Awards for All’ is a funding programme that is designed to be as simple and accessible as possible. It aims to support small to medium-sized groups. You can apply for between £300 and £20,000 to help deliver projects that will make a difference to communities.
You can read more about it here: National Lottery Awards for All England | The National Lottery Community Fund
Common Problems with applications
1. Applicants often focus on outputs rather than outcomes. For example, applicants will talk about all of the various activities they run, rather than about the difference that these activities make to people's lives. In your application, make sure to write about the difference that you plan to make, as well the difference that previous projects (if you’ve done any) have made.
2. Smaller groups don't have monitoring and evaluation plans for their projects in place and so often can't produce evidence for the work that they've done. If you don’t collect information while you run your project, it will be hard to prove that you’ve made a difference to your local community and the lottery might not want to fund you again. We can help you make a plan about how you will collect evidence.
3. Successful applicants often change their projects significantly without communicating with the ‘Awards for All’ team. This causes issues down the line when it comes to reporting because the project that's been funded hasn't technically been delivered. If you need to make changes to your project, make sure that you discuss this with the Awards for All team. You can find contact information here: Contact us | The National Lottery Community Fund
4. There has been a rise in groups secretly using bid writers and using their bid writer as the main contact. No matter how good the bid writer is, they will know less about your group or project than you do. The best applications are written by groups themselves and use local knowledge. Make sure that your point of contact is someone in the group who understands the project and the history of the group.
5. Applicants don’t give enough information about how they have involved the community. Make sure to mention how you have consulted the people you plan to work with, as well as how they will be involved in the project going forward.
6. People write long and complicated answers. You don’t need to write an essay. Make the application as easy to read as possible. You can even answer in bullet points.
7. People don't address each of the bullet points in the guidance for the application. You can see a full list of questions with guidance about what to write for each answer here: National Lottery Awards for All England - Application Questions - The National Lottery Community Fund
Advice for answering the questions in the application
Awards for All applications are assessed based on the information given in all of the answers. However, there are three questions that are the most important. You should focus most of the time you spend planning and writing your application on these questions:
- What would you like to do?
- How does your project meet our funding priorities?
- How does your project involve your community?
As mentioned above, there is clear guidance available from The Lottery about how to answer these questions. You should make sure that you address each of the bullet points that you can read here: National Lottery Awards for All England - Application Questions - The National Lottery Community Fund
Additional guidance on specific questions
“What would you like to do?”
This question is asking you to describe your project as clearly as possible. It is crucial that you address each of the bullet points in the guidance.
Make sure that you address each of the bullet points in the link above. Good answers to this question are concise and use the Lottery’s guidance for structure. Write one or two sentences for each bullet point.
Focus on writing about the difference that you will make. Use evidence from your real local community to back this up.
“How does your project meet our funding priorities?”
This question is asking you to show that your project will make the specific kinds of changes that the Lottery are interested in funding. This question is about how you will make a difference, not just what you will do.
You only need to address one of the funding priorities. Think carefully about which one your project addresses the best from the following options:
- bring people together to build strong relationships in and across communities
- improve the places and spaces that matter to communities
- help more people to reach their potential, by supporting them at the earliest possible stage
- support people, communities and organisations facing more demands and challenges because of the cost-of-living crisis.
Make sure to describe how what you plan to do will address these priorities. Applicants often just list the priorities they think they will address without explaining how they plan to do this or why their idea is a good way of addressing the issue. For example- ‘Our community gardening project will improve the places and spaces that matter to communities by caring for a neglected green space in our local park and giving people to skills to look after the space’ rather than ‘we will improve the places and spaces that matter to communities’.
Clearly identify which priority you will address in your answer.
“How does your project involve your community?”
This is the question that most applications fail on. It isn’t asking for more detail about your project- it's asking you to show that your project has community backing, is driven by knowledge of local need, and will empower people to be involved in making a difference.
Use quotations from real conversations, emails, or social media posts. While statistics and data can be useful, The Lottery team want to know what real local people have said about the difference that this work will make to their lives.
Clearly identify the community you plan to work with. Some examples: ‘People who live in Felling ward’, ‘The deaf community of Newcastle’, ‘BAME people in Wingrove’.
Describe how the community you work with will be involved. Some examples include; holding regular members’ meetings, having people with lived experience on your board, running open days and community days, creating opportunities for feedback from beneficiaries.
Make sure to include details about how you have included people’s thoughts and voices in your planning. Include information about:
- how many people you have spoken to,
- how you spoke to them (e.g. via your Facebook group, during regular activities, via a survey), and
- what they said.
Further support with applications
The Support and Development team can provide further support with applications. We can help you clarify your ideas, as well as reviewing applications before you send them off. Please get in touch with us if you would like this support:
Phone: 0191 235 7021
Gus Beamish
