The Solidarity Fund

This funding is for organisations in England dealing with the causes of inequality. By inequality The National Lottery Community Fund mean poverty, disadvantage and discrimination. They know that there are many organisations already working on this. The National Lottery Community Fund want to support and strengthen their work over the long term.

The National Lottery Community Fund will fund organisations that are working on making a lasting change to the causes of inequality. And that support people who’ve lived through these issues to work together and influence this.

You do not need to be a long-established organisation to apply. But the Community Fund expect you to have the ability to help make the kind of big and long-lasting changes we’re looking for. And they're unlikely to fund work that’s completely unrelated to what you already do.

You can apply for between £1 million and £5 million in total. You can spend this funding over 5 to 10 years.

Who they'll fund:

• your organisation’s work must be led by, and accountable to, people with lived experience of the issues you’re trying to change. They could be your organisation’s leaders. Or they could be deeply involved in your work in other ways.

What they'll fund: your work must,

• help make big and lasting changes to the root causes of poverty, disadvantage or discrimination. By this, they mean doing more than helping people with the issues they are facing now. Like changing the way organisations or sectors work together, so it’s fairer for people. This is sometimes called ‘systems change’.
• bring people together to deal with the root causes of poverty, disadvantage or discrimination. By supporting people to work on this across different issues and communities. This is what they mean by working in ‘solidarity’.

How they expect you to work: you must,

• support communities to build power. So they have the skills, confidence, and support to get organised and make lasting change,
• create, share, and use learning from people that experience inequality. To support them to have a say and be heard. And to support people to take action to make things better.