Responding to Demand V: Upcoming Changes to Our Open Grants Programme

The last update shared details of our Impact Framework and our plans to introduce a new application process (including new application forms) to better align with that framework. This update provides further details about our timeline and the impact that will have on potential grant applicants.

We will, for a short time, take our grants portal offline in order to make the necessary updates to our application system and website. This will mean a temporary suspension of applications from 16 June to 2 July.

The current application forms will be available until 5.00pm on Monday, 16June, and you will not be able to use them to apply for a grant after that date. Any applications received by then will be assessed, and applicants notified of decisions over the following months. If you have applied to us and not yet had a decision, please bear with us; we are still undertaking our normal grant assessments, and will notify you as soon as we can. Your application will not be negatively affected by the forthcoming changes to our application forms.

During this temporary down time,  between 16 June and 2 July, we will be uploading new application forms, testing the updates to our grants portal, and preparing to launch our new website. These updates will go ‘live’ and be available via our redesigned website on 2 July.

We want to reassure potential grant applicants that there will be no change to eligibility criteria, and applications are already being assessed and prioritised based on our Impact Framework. Our new application process, and forms, are designed to help us better communicate our funding priorities to applicants, and to manage demand.

If you have been considering applying to us, there is no advantage to doing so before we make our changes to the system. However, if you have a draft application on our grants portal that is close to completion, you will be able to make further changes and submit it before 5.00pm on 16 June.

Alternatively, if you are not ready to submit but do not wish to lose access to your work in progress, please download and save a copy of your draft before the forms are removed. Our new forms will include some of the same questions (so you may be able to copy and paste some of your responses), alongside new questions on lived experience in your organisation.

If you have recently started an application form on our system, you will also receive an email with this information.

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