Funding news for community buildings
Our funding sources list
Take a look at our funding list for community buildings for information about grant schemes and funding ideas. You can download the list free of charge from our website.
Particularly for buildings in villages and small towns
If you’re planning a major refurbishment or extension project then make sure you’ve checked whether you’re eligible for the Village Hall Improvement Grant Fund. You can apply for up to £75,000, to a maximum of 20% of the total project cost – as recompense for the VAT that is added on to most building works on community halls.
Read the guidance notes (direct link here) for the full details, but note in particular that you can only apply if:
- Your building is in a town or village of under 10,000 population
- Your organisation is charitable (local authorities are not eligible)
- Your organisation is not registered for VAT
Two more schemes for smaller communities
Vouchers for fast broadband schemes
Also for rural areas, you might find it useful to sign up for the monthly Rural Funding Digest which is produced by the Rural Services Network. Their July bulletin is here – and see the green box on the right of the page where you can sign up to receive future bulletins.
For ideas of a more enterprising nature
Community Business Bright Ideas Fund – grants of up to £15,000 ‘to give community groups in England the support necessary to start setting up their community business’ for ‘development and start-up costs’. It talks about setting up organisations but the football case study at the bottom of the page suggests older organisations can apply if they are unincorporated (like charitable trusts / associations) or if they have only been a corporate body (like a charitable company, CIO, or CIC) for less than 5 years.
If you’re not sure what the term community business means then take a look here – it can include charitable community associations and halls because hiring out space counts as trading.