Reaching Communities England

The big sibling of Awards for All, and the obvious next step once your ask passes £20,000. This is one of the very few major funders whose guidance names digital directly: alongside core running costs, it funds organisational development including business planning, staff and volunteer training, and technology upgrades. No digital case to construct, the funder wrote it for you.

• What they fund: Almost everything. Day-to-day running costs, sometimes called core costs or fixed costs, direct project delivery, organisational development, and land or building work. Existing work and new ideas both qualify.
• Typical grants: £20,001 or more, for up to 5 years. Most projects receive under £500,000, and in 2025 the average award was £319,000 over 3 years, though grants run from £50,000 development funding up to multi-million partnership awards. Ask for an amount proportionate to your income.
• Who can apply: Constituted community organisations, registered charities, CIOs, not-for-profit companies and CICs with an asset lock, community benefit societies and co-operatives, all serving communities in England, with at least two unrelated people on the board.
• The angle: Your project must deliver one of four missions: bringing communities together, helping children and young people thrive, addressing health inequalities, or supporting the environment, and priority goes to places, people and communities experiencing poverty, disadvantage or discrimination, and to work that supports communities to shape the decisions that affect their lives. Community involvement in design isn’t a nice-to-have here, it’s the assessment. A rebuilt website that lets you deliver a service online or reach people who can’t attend in person is a legitimate line in a much bigger core or project budget.
• Worth knowing: This is slow money. It’s a two-stage process, the second stage by invitation, and a full decision can take up to four months at the first stage and up to six months at the second, so don’t apply for anything urgent. You can only hold one application at a time. If your ask is under £20,000, use Awards for All instead, which is already in this directory. You can apply with the online form or, unusually, by email or a 5-minute video.