National Lottery Community Fund announces ‘Bold New Vision’

The National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF) has published its  ‘bold new vision’ for supporting communities across England over the next five years which includes distributing at least £3 billion in funds by 2030.

The changes, which are in response to what communities and third sector organisations in England have said is important to them, start from Spring 2025.

NLCF is currently seeking partners for the development phase of three new approaches which will focus on increasing the voice and resilience of communities that support them:

• Community Power Fund – £1.2 million in funding is available over one year for the development stage of this £100 million, 10-year fund which is expected to launch in 2026.
  • Community or voluntary organisations and public sector organisations can apply for grants of between £50,000 and £80,000 per partner organisation.
• You Decide Funding – £2 million in funding distributed between up to five partners for this one year development phase. Partners need to have expertise in involving communities in decisions about grant making and be available from Spring 2025 to Spring 2026.
  • Community or voluntary organisations can apply for a maximum grant of £80,000 to cover their costs. Of the £2 million, at least £1.6 million is for onward granting to communities.
• Grant Holder Support. £2.1 million is available to deliver a package of funding and support to address the most common challenges that communities face. A total of £150 million of funding is committed to this until 2030. This funding will help increase the knowledge, skills and resilience of civil society organisations.
  • Community or voluntary organisations can apply. One grant of £200,000 for a lead partner and £1.9 million to support around 8 to 10 civil society organisations participating in the partnership and development work. There is particular interest in partners that have experience in supporting civil society organisations, but that may not have received funding from NLCF before and have experience working with people, places and communities who experience the most poverty, disadvantage and discrimination.

Expressions of interest for all three programmes will open on 8 January 2025.

Further details can be found in the press release published on the National Lottery Community Fund website.