Youth Social Action Fund

BBC Children in Need, in partnership with the #iwill Fund and The Hunter Foundation, are delivering a £3 million fund to support organisations to embed youth social action across the UK. This fund will help to build children and young people’s confidence and skills, empowering them to take an active and leading role in developing solutions to issues which affect their lives and their communities.

The #iwill Fund is a £54 million joint investment between The National Lottery Community Fund and The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

This funding will support organisations to bring social action and youth empowerment opportunities to children and young people, to help prevent or overcome the effects of the disadvantages they face. We especially want to reach:

• organisations who focus on addressing issues of disadvantage affecting children and young people
• children and young people who have some experience of social action and want to develop their skills and experience to do more.
• children and young people who have no experience of social action work at all but want to find out what it is all about.

We will be launching two programmes about sharing power with children and young people; our Youth Social Action Fund and our We Move Youth Social Action Fund. The We Move Youth Social Action Fund is aimed specifically at Black led organisations and organisations that work with Black children and young people. You can find out more about the fund here.

The Youth Social Action Fund is for children and young people aged 18 and under. We know that many youth social action projects are working with older age ranges in this bracket. We especially welcome applications from organisations working with or planning to work with children (e.g. 15 and under).

Young people have been working with us since the beginning of designing this fund. It is important to us that we are designing a programme that embodies the values of youth social action. We will continue to involve them throughout the assessment and decision-making process. We want to ensure that their voices are heard and the issues that matter most to them are addressed.

What is social action?

Youth social action describes the activities that children and young people do to make a positive difference and drive change in their communities and for the world around them. Through youth social action children and young people use their voice and their lived experience, if they wish, to tackle subjects that matter to them.

Through social action, we hope children and young people will be able to develop their own solutions to issues they and their local communities face. We aim to fund work which is:​

• Led by children and young people, focusing on the social change they want to see. ​
• Genuinely developmental and reciprocal for children and young people. Providing them with life enhancing experience and new skills and confidence. ​
• Prioritising the wellbeing of children and young people at all times.​
• Inclusive of all age ranges
• Valuing lived experience
• Allowing time and space for project ideas to grow, through an initial development phase. This period of time at the start of each grant will build the capacity of the children and young people to take part in youth social action. It may also enable the organisations to build their own capacity.

About the Fund

This fund is for not-for-profit organisations, who focus on addressing issues of disadvantage affecting children and young people’s lives, and are motivated to empower them to take part in youth social action.

How much can I apply for?

• Up to £15k for unregistered organisations and up to £50k for registered bodies (please read the detail below carefully)
• If you are not registered with an appropriate regulatory body, you can apply for up to £10k per year, or £15k over the 18 months. An appropriate body includes the Charity Commission for England and Wales, Charity Commission for Northern Ireland and OSCR -The Office of the Scottish Charity. If you are a Company limited by Guarantee or a Community Interest Company, you must have registered with Companies House.
• If you are registered you can apply for up to £50k over the 18 months

We expect there to be a mix in the size of grants awarded.

Who can apply

For the Youth Social Action Fund we accept applications from:

• Charitable incorporated organisations and Scottish charitable incorporated organisations;
• Community interest companies (CIC) limited by guarantee;
• Companies limited by guarantee with a clause in their governing document preventing distribution of profit (including social enterprises);
• Housing associations;
• Industrial and provident community benefit societies;
• Registered charities;
• Religious institutions;
• Special schools – These are provisions for children with learning difficulties or disabilities which cannot be met within a mainstream setting
• Unregistered Organisations. If you not registered with an appropriate regulatory body you are an unregistered organisation. An appropriate body includes the Charity Commission for England and Wales, Charity Commission for Northern Ireland and OSCR -The Office of the Scottish Charity Register. If you are a Company limited by Guarantee or a Community Interest Company, you must have registered with Companies House

How Long are the grants for?

• • We will fund grants of any length up to 18 months
  • We expect there to be an initial development phase of your work, to allow you to design and prepare according to the choices of the children and young people you are working with.
    
  What will the process be like?
  
  • We will award grants in August. Delivery must be completed by the middle of March 2024.
  • We expect all successful organisations to take part in a self-directed development stage for up to 6 months at the beginning of their grant period. We know it takes time to plan and develop work in detail, and to build the capacity of children and young people to take part in youth social action. The content and length will be bespoke to the project and organisation. In your application, you can ask for up to 10% of your budget for development support. We will also provide some capacity building support for your organisation and children and young people during this stage. We will discuss this more in the information session. We expect that the development stage will be used to:
    • Develop project plans, recruit and refine your budget
    • Build the capacity of the children and young people to take the lead in shaping the project
    • Build the capacity of the organisation to run a successful project.
      
    
    
  After the funded development phase, organisations will have until mid-March 2024 to deliver and evaluate their social action projects.
  
  • At the end of the bespoke development phase, successful organisations will meet with their grants officer to finalise their project plan and expenditure.
    
  How do I apply or find out more?
  To apply to this fund, you must sign up to a one hour information session. If you cannot make a session, we will send you the link to a recorded session. We are only making application forms available to organisations who have attended an information session or have received a recorded session.
  Accessibility
  We want everyone to be able to apply for our funding. We’re committed to being as accessible as possible, wherever we can. If you need support, please contact us on 0345 609 0015 or by emailing pudseygrants@bbc.co.uk.
  For the information sessions, this support might include:
  
  • Making transcripts available after the information session
  • Enabling closed captioning
  • A conversation rather than attending an information session
    
  For the application process, this support might include
  
  • Requesting guidance in other formats
  • Using a translator
    
  You know what you need best, so please talk to us and we will do what we can to support you.

How to Apply? - Information Sessions

To apply to this fund, please:

• Sign up for an information session here.
• This will take you to our Online Portal. You can log in if you have previously applied to us or sign up for a new account. You will also access your application form here when it goes live.
• If you cannot attend any of the dates, please choose the option ‘I cannot attend any of these sessions’ and we will send you a recorded session.
• We will release the application form and application pack after the information sessions.
• These sessions will be led by BBC Children in Need staff. The information session will include information on the overall fund, the application process and the development stage for successful organisations.

Information sessions will take place on the following dates:

• 5 April 10am
• 6 April 2.30pm
• 7 April 5.30pm
• 8 April 9.30am
• 11 April 12pm

Registration for the Information Sessions will close on Friday 8^th April at 5pm.

Application forms will be sent out after the information sessions to those who have attended or watched a recorded version.

The deadline for submitting application forms is Monday 23^rd May at 11.30am.

Decisions will be communicated to applicants by the end of August 2022.

We are keen to ensure that organisations who would like to know more about youth social action, are able to consider applying to this Fund. As a result, we are also delivering an optional additional workshop focusing on Youth Social Action and how to engage children and young people more meaningfully in your work. If you would like to sign up to this workshop, please click here.

Youth Social Action workshops will take place on the following dates:

• 26 April, 4.30pm
• 28 April, 4.30pm
• 7th May, 10:30am