Grants

Grants will only be made to charitable, voluntary and other not-for-profit organisations.

We define not-for-profit organisations as those:

• Whose governing body (board or management committee) is entirely voluntary
• Whose members do not receive any financial benefit
• Whose income and assets are used for exclusively charitable purposes (and any remaining assets are transferred to a
• charitable organisation)
• That do not pay any dividend or distribute any surplus to shareholders or members

Your organisation does not have to be a charity but it does need to have:

• ·Its own bank account, with at least two cheque signatories (who are not related to each other)
• A constitution or set of governing rules
• Accounts or records of expenditure
• Relevant policies (such as equal opportunities, child protection, vulnerable adults, health and safety etc)

We can’t accept applications from individuals.

We can accept applications from social enterprises, Community Interest Companies (CICs) and Companies Limited by Guarantee carrying out charitable activities. However, these organisations must have:

• Demonstrable public benefit and clear protection against private benefit
• The majority of the directors must be unrelated and not paid either as directors or for delivering the activities of the organisation (if some are related there must be at least three who are not) and none should be registered as Persons with Significant Control
• A majority of non-executive directors approving the salaries and benefits of any paid directors, which should be reasonable and proportionate to the work they do and the financial position of the organisation
• An asset lock body (in the case of CICs) with objectives that are charitable and similar to the CIC
  Commercial enterprises will not be eligible for grants in any circumstances.

Requests for grants in association with national appeals will be rejected unless a specific connection with the town of Lewes can be demonstrated.

You should be able to demonstrate that your work is of benefit to the town of Lewes and its residents. While organisations located outside of Lewes will be eligible (if beneficiaries are based in Lewes), priority will be given to organisations located in Lewes.

• Activities which don’t benefit Lewes residents
• Organisations that discriminate unlawfully under the provisions set out by the Equalities Act 2010
• Organisations where the service provided is used as a vehicle or means to promote religious beliefs
• Political activities
• Grants which will be used to make awards to a third party
• Organisations who have not returned monitoring from previous grant awards
• Retrospective funding for activities or projects that have already taken place

Grant applications should be submitted using our online application form, just see the form link above.

We can also provide paper forms – please ring the Town Hall if you need these.

If you need support to access the online form please contact [email protected] or phone 01273 471469.

You’ll need to send us some documents to support your application. Please attach these to the online form. We won’t be able to consider your application without them.

We need the following documents:

• A signed copy of your latest annual accounts or record of expenditure
• A copy of a bank statement from the last three months
• A signed copy of your constitution or set of rules (if you are a CIC, please also supply your CIC 34 report)
• Your equal opportunities policy, covering both the Equalities Act 2010 and the nine protected characteristics (If you need support in developing a policy like this, please see the ‘Other sources of funding and support’ tab)
• Other policies relevant to your work such as child protection or vulnerable adult protection policy, health and safety policy, environmental or sustainability policy
  If you’re applying for a grant to purchase equipment, please send copies of written estimates or catalogue pages.

When you’ve finished your project you will need to complete an online form within 12 months with some details about how the project went. This information is really useful to us for planning our future grants budget, and it’s a condition of any future funding for your group.

We’ll send you a link to the monitoring form when you get your grant. You dont need to submit detailed evidence of expenditure, although please do keep records of these as we may ask for this as part of our evaluation.