Frequently Asked Questions

We award grants of up to £2500 – with the exception of The Goshen Fund and John Bloom Law Bursary – please enquire for more details on these grant funds.

You must be one of the following; a voluntary or community organisation, registered charity, parish or town council (must be led by the community and not members of the council) or a school (you may only apply if your project does not form part of the National Curriculum).

Your group must have its own bank account, which must be in the same name as the application.

Your governing body/board must have a minimum of three members.

You must be operating in, and benefitting, one or more of the communities of Darlington, Stockton on Tees, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool or Redcar and Cleveland.

We aim to process applications within a four-week period (from receipt to decision and payment). Our General Grants Fund is an open call, so there is no deadline or cut-off date for submissions.

We don’t fund overseas travel.

We aren’t able to fund religious activities but we can fund activities that take place on religious premises for the benefit of the wider community.

Unfortunately, other than our bursary fund we do not offer grants for individuals.

We only accept applications from organisations whose sole purpose is supporting the community.

This must be a professional who does not work directly for the organisation applying and has knowledge of your group and its’ activities.

You can apply for a grant more than once within any 12 month period but previous applications/ funding will be taken into consideration during the decision making process.

In order to apply for a grant with us you need to be registered.

If you are already registered but can’t remember your password please click “forgot password”, a member of the team will then aim to send this to you, usually within 2 hours, between 9am-5pm Monday – Thursday.

If you are not registered please complete the form and a member of our team will activate your account, usually within 2 hours, between the hours of 9am-5pm Monday – Thursday.

If you are registering or requesting a password outside of office hours, please be aware this will not be processed until our return to the office at 9am on a Monday, as we are required to carry this out manually.

When you log in, the status of your application will show “In Progress” prior to submitting your application, once you have submitted it will show as “Received”.

We would love to hear about your project so please feel free to forward any end of project reports, case studies, press releases, images or videos to us along with proof of spend if applicable (images or scanned receipts welcome).

In line with our new working situation, we will be operating a voicemail only service. Please leave a message stating your name, telephone number and enquiry and the relevant member of staff will return your call during office hours (9am- 5pm Monday- Thursday).

Unfortunately we are unable to tell you whether your application is likely to be approved by our panel prior to decision but here are some tips for making sure your application can be processed as quickly as possible:

Ensure your governing documents are all present and correct  – have you attached an up-to-date, signed copy of your constitution and is your bank statement in the name of the group applying.