National Lottery Awards for All regularly receives a lot more applications than we can support.

Read on to find out if this source of funding is right for your organisation and get some detail on how to give your application the best chance of success.

Make sure your organisation is eligible

Most funders – including The National Lottery Community Fund – can only fund not-for-profit organisations to run a project, not individual people.

Read this information and the eligibility criteria  on the National Lottery Awards for All Northern Ireland webpage before you apply to ensure you meet the criteria.

Apply early

It can take up to 12 weeks for us to review an application and give you a decision. Starting early gives you time to find the most appropriate funding programme and gather the information you need to write your application. This kind of preparation makes it so much easier as our assessment will be based on the information you give us in your application.

Your organisation can apply for eligible project costs of between £300 and £20,000 for projects lasting up to two years.  You can apply for projects that take place over a shorter period of time but it is important to note that the maximum amount you can apply for within any 12 month period is £20,000.

If you already have an existing grant through the National Lottery Awards for All in Northern Ireland, you will have to wait until that grant has closed.  Organisations can only hold one grant at a time. We can only consider one application at a time when you do apply. 

Check and recheck

We can only assess your application if we have all the information. Every week, as many as a quarter of applications we receive are missing vital information. One of the most common mistakes is failure to provide the right bank statement.

So, it’s important to read through the funding programme information to make sure your project idea meets all the criteria, and you must complete all sections and include all relevant information.

If you are applying for a project based in a school read our blog for further advice.

National Lottery Awards for All won’t be the right source of funding for every project so our advice on what to avoid  is also worth a read.

Double check your organisation details

• Make sure you tell us what type of organisation you are e.g., constituted group or club, registered charity, community interest company (CIC) and so on. These are legal terms and should be checked before you apply.
• The organisation name you use on your application form must be the same as on your governing document.
• If you are registered with a regulatory body, make sure to include your registration number in your application form.
• If you are registered at either Charity Commission NI or Companies House, please make sure your details are up-to-date before applying. For example, the name and address of your organisation that you use on your application form must be the same as what is registered, and the name of your current trustees or directors must be correct. If it isn’t, do not apply until you’ve updated your registration details.
• It’s really important that organisations that apply have at least two people on their board or committee who are not related. By related we mean related by marriage, in a civil partnership with each other, in a long-term relationship with each other, related through a long-term partner, living together at the same address or related by blood. All companies who apply must have at least two directors who are not related in any of these ways and be registered at Companies House. This also applies to companies that are also registered as charities.  
• We also expect you to have safeguarding policies/processes in place if you are working with children and/or vulnerable adults. 

Make sure you use the right contact people

• We require contact details, home addresses and dates of birth of two different people from the organisation. Both contacts need to have different email addresses and phone numbers and must not be related. We can’t proceed with your application if both contacts are the same person or related.
• Avoid using a shortened version of your name, or a nickname. We may use this information to carry out some basic identity checks and if we’re not able to confirm your details, we will have to ask you to provide additional information and delay our decision.
• Your senior contact is legally responsible for ensuring that the application is supported by the organisation applying, the funding will be delivered as intended and monitoring will be carried out as part of the project if we decide to fund it.
• If you’re a company registered with Companies House, the senior contact also needs to be registered as a Company Director or Company Secretary and needs to be listed on the Companies House website. This also applies to companies which are also registered charities
• If you’re a registered charity (and not a company), the senior contact needs to be listed as a trustee on the Charity Commission’s website.

Be sure that you attach a bank statement that meets our requirements

The bank statement (or bank welcome letter if the account was opened within the last three months) must be uploaded as one single file. If you have several pages, you can take one photo of them all and upload that.

Please read our financial controls guidance. It’s important that any organisation applying to us meets both this guidance and our terms and conditions.

Double check you answered all the questions on the form – this is your chance to tell us about the work you do to support your community. Why not get someone to act as a critical friend and read over your application, particularly the finances section?

Community involvement

Remember to tell us why you want to run the project and how the community was involved in developing and shaping your idea and how they will continue to be involved throughout. This means explaining why the project is wanted by your community, and how you know this. We want to understand how your project plans have come from listening to your community, and we will take this into account when assessing.

Give your application the best chance of success

National Lottery Awards for All Northern Ireland regularly receives more good applications than we can support.

If your project is based in a school it important that you read the guidance carefully and our blog as we can only support schools by exception.

If your idea aims to increase participation in arts, sports or heritage or is requesting costs focusing in these areas (coaching, arts facilitators, improving a historic building…) we will not be the best funding option for your idea as other National Lottery distributors provide funding in these areas.  

It is also important to note, that we will give lower priority to applications from groups who have a high level of income or who have already received funding within the past two years. When we make decisions, we consider the following:

• How well your project meets the programme priorities.
• The geographic/thematic spread of projects.
• Recent previous grant history.
• Are your project costs reasonable?

It is very important to only apply for what you need – do not inflate costs to reach the maximum grant amount available. Also please only ask us to support your project for the length of time it will actually take to complete – remember you cannot apply again until this grant is closed. When completing your budget table, it is good practice to include a brief rationale in the project costs activity column as this will assist the assessor to understand your request.

We have outlined some key things to avoid when applying  in another blog so this is worth a read if you are considering applying to National Lottery Awards for All.

Support Available

If you are stuck, talk to us! It’s better to clear up issues, ask questions, or check eligibility in advance of applying. We are very happy to hear from you, and are available to support you at every stage, even if you are just at the initial stage of developing your project.

Give our Enquiries team a call on 028 9055 1455 or email us at enquiries.ni@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk. We cannot give assurances of success but can discuss our funding priorities and criteria.