Unrestricted grants of up to £75,000 over 3 years (ie £25,000 per year) are available to support Registered Charities and Community Interest Companies in England, Wales and the Isle of Man that are led by and working with Deaf and Disabled people aged 18 and over who are experiencing hardship and barriers to accessing services.
The Foundation can also provide up to £500 of accessibility support to enable groups to apply for this programme, including British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters, language translation, scribes and dyslexia software. Tailored additional support may also be available to successful applicants to help them to strengthen their organisation, become more resilient and develop further.
The Foundation considers the term 'deaf to apply to those who are born deaf or experience hearing loss before spoken language is acquired and regard their deafness as part of their identity and culture rather than as a disability. This forms the Deaf Community and are predominantly British Sign Language (BSL) users. The term also applies to those who have become deafened or hard of hearing in later life, and are more likely to use hearing aids and develop lipreading skills after they have acquired a spoken language and so identify themselves with the hearing community.
The Foundation applies the term ‘disabled people’ to refer to people with:
- A physical impairment.
- A visual impairment.
- A hearing impairment.
- An invisible impairment.
- Long-term health conditions.
- Learning difficulties.
- Experience of mental distress, and/or
- Neurodivergence.
Applying organisations must:
- Be led by and working for Deaf and Disabled people. This means a majority (at least 51%) of Directors Trustees and half (at least 50%) of staff, at all levels of the organisation, self-identify as Deaf and/or Disabled people. Priority will be given to organisations where at least 75% of their Directors/Trustees and 50% of staff self-identify as Deaf and/or Disabled people, and
- Delivering support, activities or services that are person centred and supporting people over the long-term to have more choice and control over their lives.
Charities wishing to apply must:
- Be an independent organisation. They will look at any formal associations you have with other organisations, parent bodies, or group structures. They will check that the Board of your charity has full control over the work and any conflicts of interest.
- Be based and working in England and Wales. Most of your charity’s time and money is spent on activities in England and/or Wales and helping people living in England and/or Wales.
- Be led by and working for the communities you support. By this, they mean that at least 75% of your trustees and at least 50% of staff self-identify as Deaf or Disabled.
- Be registered as a charity with the Charity Commission. They will ask for your charity registration number at the start of your application.
- Have a bank account in the name of the charity with unrelated signatories. If the application is successful, the grant must be paid into this account.
- Have a Board of at least three unrelated trustees in place, with their names appearing on your Charity Commission records.
- Have an annual income of between £25,000 and £500,000 in the last set of published accounts on the Charity Commission website. This is total income and, in the case of consolidated accounts, should cover all entities within those accounts.
- Have a safeguarding policy in place. They will ask about your understanding of this policy as well as the approach to safeguarding across your organisation.
- Have at least one set of annual accounts showing as ‘received’ on the Charity Commission website, covering a twelve-month period.
- Have a track record of delivering services, for at least one year. You must currently be delivering services. If your organisation has recently merged, then this must apply to at least one organisation pre-merger.
- Hold Public Liability Insurance.
- Not make any payments to trustees, except for out-of-pocket expenses.
- The majority of people in positions of power (including trustees, the CEO, and senior managers) must not be related nor live at the same address. Where there are some related parties, they will consider the relationship, conflicts of interest and loyalty, the balance of power of the related trustees, and how this is managed, and
- Your charity works predominately with adults over 18 years old.
Further information, guidance, an initial Eligibility Quiz and details about how to apply is available on the Foundation’s website.
The application deadline is 5pm on Wednesday 28 August 2024, with successful applicants expected to be notified in November/December 2024.
The Foundation has scheduled an online webinar for Thursday 13 June 2024 between 10:30am and 12 noon to talk through eligibility, shortlisting, the prioritising criteria for this programme and to answer any questions from prospective applicants. Registration is required for the webinar and this can be done via the Foundation's website.