voluntary organisations, social enterprises and volunteering
voluntary organisations, social enterprises and volunteering
The National Lottery Community Fund Update
Created: 02/07/2019Welcome to an update from the National Lottery Community Fund Central and Fife Team.
Changes to their systems.
Between now and the end of 2019 they’re changing some of their internal systems to improve the experience of applying for and managing their grants with the ultimate aim of making things better for both new applicants and groups they already fund. Here are the main things that could impact applicants in this period:
New National Lottery Awards for All Scotland online application form
• They expect to move to a new and improved online application for National Lottery Awards for All on Monday 29 July. This date is not yet confirmed but they wanted to give you as early notification as possible. If the date changes, it will move to a later date.
• Please note, the final date for submitting an application using the current online form is Sunday 28 July at 23:59.
• Any work applicants have saved in the current form will not transfer across automatically to the new application form – so applicants who are not confident of submitting their application before the 28 July should copy and paste the content of their applications and save them to their own device, and not only on their online form.
• PDF or paper applications will be accepted as normal throughout this period
• They expect a new PDF form will be available from the 29 of July, but they will continue to accept the old forms for a period to minimise the impact on applicants.
Extended turnaround times for their funds
Up until the end of this calendar year, they expect it will take longer than usual to inform applicants of their decision on their application. The summary below lays out the maximum turnaround times for our different levels of grant during this period (as well as some of the improvements being made):
• National Lottery Awards for All Scotland: It could take up to 18 weeks for us to tell applicants our decision (followed by a further 2 weeks to pay their grant if successful).
• Young Start, Community Led Activity, Improving Lives Medium (Grants between £10k and £150k): Applicants should note that it could take up to 6 months for them to tell them their decision.
• Improving Lives Large (over £150k): it could take up to 6 months from the date they submit a stage one application for us to tell them our decision and, if successful, a further 4 months for their final second stage decision.
• Community Assets and Scottish Land Fund: They aim to keep the timescales for both of these funds unchanged. Please note, Community Assets will close to new business on October 04 2019.
They’re hopeful that for most applicants they will not need as long as they have indicated above but if you’re working with any potential applicants who would be seriously affected, please ask them to get in touch with them as soon as possible to discuss this, and they’ll do their best to be flexible. Their website will be updated next week related to this but they wanted to give you a bit of a heads up about this.
If you’ve any questions on the above, please get in touch at [email protected].