LINKS TO FUNDERS THAT MAY FUND LEASEHOLDERS' AND OTHER RESIDENTS' ASSOCIATIONS

See below for basic guidelines with regard to seaking funding for your organisation. Funders City Parochial Foundation....................City Parochial Foundation
European Social Fund..........................European Social Fund
Future Builders.......................................Future Builders
This is often mentioned as a possible source but Futurebuilders only offer support in areas that are part funded by the public pures and on one of these categories: Community Cohesion, Crime, Education and Learning, Health and social Care or Support for Children and Young People! Hm?! Housing Corporation.............................Innovation and Good Practice (IGP)
In past years they have had a bidding round that has been announced in the early Autumn so watch out from the Summer on Joseph Rowntree .................................Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF)
Funding for research projects into social issues Peabody Trust ......................................Local Network Fund
Government initiative administered by Peabody "Working to alleviate Child Poverty" UK National Lottery...............................Lottery Funding
Fund Finders Charities Direct.....................................Charities Direct
GRANTFinder........................................Grant Net Requires registration. Gives access to 4,000 sources.
Other Links Charities Regulator & Registrar..........Charities Commission
Institute of Fundraising..........................Institute of Fundraising
London Voluntary Service Council......London Voluntary Service Council (LVSC)
National voluntary organisation............National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NSVO)
Weekly news magazine ......................Third Sector "Third Sector is the UK’s leading publication for everyone who needs to know what’s going on in the voluntary and not-for-profit sector."

BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ORGANISATION SEAKING FUNDING
'Third Sector' help for voluntary organisations
Voluntary Organisations are said to be in the 'Third Sector'
Not surprisingly the Third Sector is a vast and growing sector and there are other bodies out there in the 'Third Sector' that are funded just to help you. So:-

Lesson nr.1 is:-
Join the appropriate body that is there to help your organisation.

In London you could not do better than start with the London Voluntary Service Council
If you operate London-wide then this might be the appropriate body to register with and otherwise they will be able to direct you to your local borough-wide voluntary service council.
This family of organisations are able to give training on fund raising and advise on funding sources.
The cost of working with them is generally designed to be minimal compared with whatever size your turnover is.

Before you think of applying you must....
Have an organisation.
This means that you need a constitution and
You need a bank account into which to pay the funding you seak.
For how best to do this ..... get advice from your local voluntary action council....see above.

Lesson nr.2 is:-
Don't make sssumptions!
You don't need to be a charity and you don't need to be a company at the outset but is may help in time. Don't assume that as an amateur that you can make the right decisions.
The Third sector is now a vast and sophisticated industry (not surprising now that we have exported all our real industry) and it is competitive, so you need help!

While you are organising help you might consider whether you have clearly set out the following:- What do you want to do?................................aims
Why?.................................................................reasons
How will you do this?.......................................objectives
Who will you work with?..................................target group
What will be the result?...................................outcomes
How much will it cost?.....................................budget
What will happen when the grant ends?........exit strategy
How will you keep track of your progress?...monitoring and evaluation
Every funder will want to know these things so you need to have the answers ready. Mind you; when you have located your appropriate funding stream you will need to adjust your answers just as you change your CV for every job application.
To continue with the analogy; you don't wait till you see a job advert before getting a basic CV ready and if you wait till a 'bidding round' opens before sorting yourselves out then you will miss out on funding.

Lesson nr.3 is:-
Each Funding organisation is likely to be run by a board that will meet on a fairly set cycle of meetings with a certain time of the year when it decides on that year's priorities for the bidding round and then a regular time of year when the bidding for that year closes. So you need to research these cycles and make notes in your diary for the sources that are most likely to be useful to your organisation.

Lesson nr.4 is:-
Having located the bidding round in which you intend to compete then do everything that you can to ensure that your bid is exactly aimed to mesh with the funder's current priorities. If you don't match the funders aims then you are almost certainly wasting your time bidding.

The fundamental problem for 'tenants' (tenants includes leaseholders) is that 'they' don't accept that we have a problem!

There is a fundamental problem in that Central Government, The Housing Corporation, Communities and Local Government GLA and 'London Councils' think that tenant empowerment should be funded by individual landlords. This sounds reasonable enough and the Voluntary (Third) sector responds accordingly i.e. does nothing.

Landlords think that tenants don't have problems and in so far as there is to be tenant empowerment, it is 'they', the landlords, that know what is best for their tenants and so they want to control tenant empowerment by way of focus groups etc.

There is no purpose served by applying for grants at the wrong level.

Bodies that are London-wide cannot get funding that is aimed at local bodies. London-wide bodies such as the London Leaseholders' Network and the London Tenant Federation could help borough-wide and smaller organisations to find housing discipline funding if it in turn could pay for a fund-raiser. London-wide organisations need to turn to larger bodies such as the European Union (EU) but whereas there have been European Union meetings of Housing Ministers the EU does not have a housing remit and consequently any funding for housing would be funding that was ostensibly to fund other disciplines. So there might be social funding because of the social problems derived from bad housing.

So once our housing can be classed as a 'basket case' then there might be funding there to help us.

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