Vulnerable and disengaged young people fund

If you are a Local Commissioning Network the you may be intrested in the following fund. Perhaps it is something the LCN chair network could support?

The Vulnerable and Disengaged Young People Fund, is a new funding stream through the Cabinet Office Centre for Social Action and has up to £2m to help grow ambitious social action programmes to inspire England’s most vulnerable young people. It will be administered by the Social Investment Business on behalf of the Cabinet Office.

Organisations looking to create or further develop inspiring social action programmes for young people can apply for a development, evidence or scale-up grant.

Successful organisations will have a strong track record of reaching and creating positive impact for the most vulnerable young people as well as be able to demonstrate strong evidence of need.

Applications can come from the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector, public bodies (for example Local Authorities) and businesses with a social mission or a clear objective in their corporate social responsibility policy towards increasing social action, or businesses involved in the delivery of public service. 

The grant fund opened for applications on 8th November 2013 and closes on 6th December 2013. The Social Investment Business (SIB) is administering the fund. Further details and how to apply are available here.

More information on the Fund’s Criteria and Guidance are available at - http://www.sibgroup.org.uk/youth/criteria/ and http://www.sibgroup.org.uk/youth/guidance

Who can apply?

Organisations that work with young offenders, young people in care or leaving care, and other groups of disengaged and vulnerable young people can apply. Projects must be serving young people in the 9-24 range.

What can be applied for?

The grant programme offers 3 strands of awards:

• Development
• To expand or develop a new social action project
• Grants between £30K and £100K
• Can be used for evaluation, development, expansion & delivery costs
• Must be based on a strong theory of impact or promising evidence
• Validation
• To build evidence of impact of an existing social action project 
• Grants between £30K and £100K
• Can be used for impact evaluation, delivery costs & costs to expand if necessary for a robust evaluation
• Must be based on a strong theory of impact or promising evidence
• Scale up
• To scale up an existing social action project – for example by replicating an existing model in a new area, or by scaling up an existing programme
• Grant between £100K and £250K
• Can be used for impact evaluation, delivery costs & scale up costs

Proposals with the most rigorous evidence can receive large grants that enable expansion