FAQs

What's happened to City Parochial Foundation?

City Parochial Foundation has changed its name and does the same work it always did, but we've amalgamated with our sister charity, Trust for London. Our new name is Trust for London, which we hope better reflects what we are about.

Why did you change your name?

We decided to do this because we believe this will make us more efficient, flexible, and avoid any confusion to groups seeking grants from us.

Also, while we're proud of our history, we wanted a name that reflected London in the 21st century rather than the Victorian age when we were first established.

We currently have a grant from you - how does the amalgamation affect us?

If you are currently in receipt of a grant from either City Parochial Foundation or Trust for London these changes will not affect your funding and your conditions of grant will still apply. Your main contact person remains the same. You can download our new logo from the website for use on your publicity materials. You do not need to replace existing stationery but please use our new logo when re-printing or ordering new materials.

We still have the same overall budget each year of approximately £6 million to fund work tackling poverty and inequality in London. We will continue to make grants (including grants to small and emerging groups), develop special initiatives on challenging issues, and commission innovative research. Our staff, trustees and office address will remain the same.

We want to apply for funding. How does the amalgamation affect us?

We hope that the process of applying to us will be clearer. Our overall annual budget of approximately £6 million to fund work tackling poverty and inequality in London remains the same, so we have the same level of funding to distribute as before.

Our funding guidelines have been updated to combine the priorities of both funds and we have refined them to take into account feedback we have received since they were first published in 2006. We have also extended the period of our current priorities from 2011 to 2012. Please make sure you have the latest copy of our guidelines.

Where does your money come from?

Our assets derive from the philanthropy of the people of London. Around 1,400 separate charitable gifts and bequests, some of them 400 years old, were held by the 112 parishes within the City of London, their income to be used for the benefit of the church communities or, more often, the poor of those parishes.

During the 19th century, the City grew to be a world financial centre but the number of poor beneficiaries fell; some parishes had no residents at all. In 1878, a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate the parochial charities of the City of London and this led to our creation. We were then known as the London Parochial Charities and later on as City Parochial Foundation.

In 1986, following the abolition of the Greater London Council the Government provided us with an endowment of £10 million to continue supporting the capital's small community groups. This was set up as a separate charity and was called Trust for London.

Our staff and Trustees managed both City Parochial Foundation and Trust for London.

In July 2010 the two organisations were amalgamated to form a single organisation called Trust for London.

When is your next closing date for funding proposals?

5th October 2010 (proposals must be received by 5pm).

What kind of work do you fund?

Our mission is to tackle poverty and inequality in London. There are many ways this can be achieved, however we do not have sufficient resources to support all work related to these significant issues. We have therefore focussed on five priority areas:

• Improving employment opportunities for disadvantaged people
• Promoting the inclusion of recent arrivals to the UK
• Promoting social justice (policy change and campaigning work)
• Strengthening the skills of the voluntary and community sector
• Supporting small community groups.

These are explained in more detail in our funding guidelines.
We also fund special initiatives which have a more strategic focus.

Do you only fund work related to London?

Yes, generally this is the case. However, some of the activities we fund have a wider national, and sometimes international significance. If this is the case we will contribute towards the London element of the work, as long as a significant proportion of the beneficiaries are living and working in London.

For example, if you were proposing to change national policy in relation to migrants' rights, we would consider this, as approximately half of the UK's migrant population lives in London. We could therefore consider up to half of the costs of this work.

Our legal remit is London because our funds came from a large number of legacies and donations, which were solely for the benefit of Londoners living in poverty.

We're not sure if our work fits with your funding priorities. What do we do?

Please read our funding guidelines first, to check whether your proposal fits our aims and priorities.

If, after reading these guidelines, you are in doubt about whether your work fits then please telephone us so that we can discuss your proposal. We welcome such telephone calls as it can save you and us time and resources.

Our work doesn't fit your funding priorities. Should we still apply?

If it does not fit please do not apply. This is not a good use of your time or ours.

However, we occasionally fund work to tackle poverty and inequality which falls outside our priorities, where the work is exceptional or addressing a new and emerging need. This may be unique work which no one else is undertaking; or work with a new issue/community; or developing a new innovative model of dealing with an issue. You will need to speak to us if you wish to apply under this heading. Generally we will only make a few grants under this category each year.

How many groups do you fund each year?

We fund approximately 150 groups each year. Because many of our grants are for more than one year, we are normally supporting over 400 groups at any one time. Details of the groups we fund can be found in our annual review. and in regular updates we post on our website.

How much do you give out in grants each year?

Currently we give out approximately £6 million each year. The vast majority of this is in grants, but some are contracts.

How much can I apply for?

The average grant we make is about £54,000 in total, although a number of grants are for a lesser amount, and some are for more.

The amounts may be spread over one, two or three years and in some cases over longer periods, if there is a good reason to do so. For example, if you are awarded a grant of £54,000, this could be £18,000 over three years, or £30,000 in the first year and £24,000 in the second.

We will not normally make grants that exceed £100,000. You may therefore need to apply to other funders to fund your proposal jointly with us and we encourage you to do this, as we cannot always provide the total costs of your work.

Grants made to small community groups (under Aim 5 in our funding guidelines) will not normally exceed £30,000 with an average grant being £16,000 in total, although many grants will be less than this. You may apply over one, two or three years.

How many years funding can we apply for?

The amounts may be spread over one, two or three years and in some cases over longer periods, if there is a good reason to do so.

We have had funding from you before. Can we reapply?

We support long-term strategies for dealing with poverty and inequality. Therefore organisations that have already received funding from us may apply again for work which is particularly effective and continues to meet our criteria and priorities. However, you should not assume we will award further funding and should also apply to other funders. If you wish to apply again for the same or different work, you should contact your relevant officer at least eight months before your current funding expires. Generally we do not provide more than one grant at a time.

Do you only fund registered charities?

We fund voluntary and community and other not-for-profit organisations undertaking charitable activities. We will also consider proposals from Community Interest Companies. You do not need to be a registered charity, though many of the organisations we fund are. If you are unsure about whether you are eligible to apply please telephone us.

Do you fund individuals?

No. Neither do we fund organisations applying for grants on behalf of individuals. Although this is very important work, we only have limited resources.

When can we send in our funding proposal?

You can send your proposal in at any time but we will only assess your proposal after the next closing date has passed Please note that we have three closing dates:

• 7 February for our June Grants Committee.
• 30 May for our October Grants Committee.
• 5 October for our February Grants Committee.

For example, if you send in your proposal in December we won't consider it until our next closing date of 7 February has passed. This is so we can look at all of the proposals together and compare what we have received.

Please note your proposal must reach us by 5pm on the closing date.

Proposals received after the deadline will not be considered until the next closing date.

I want to send in a funding proposal. Who do I send it to?

Please send us your proposal. Once we have received it, we will pass it onto the relevant member of staff to assess.

What happens after we send in our proposal?

We will acknowledge your proposal within five working days of receiving it, and this is usually by e-mail. It is then passed to a relevant member of our grants staff who will read and assess it. Our grants team then meet and discuss all of the proposals received and decide which ones have the closest fit with our funding aims and priorities (listed on page 16 of our funding guidelines). We expect to inform you of the result within one month of the relevant closing date.

Do you have a funding application form we can fill in?

We have no application forms. Our funding guidelines outline the points you need to cover in your funding proposal. Your proposal should be no more than five pages long. This does not include appendices such as your constitution or annual accounts.

Can we fax or e-mail you our funding proposal?

No. Currently we only accept proposals, that are submitted by post or hand delivered.

Do you fund larger organisations?

Our priority is support for smaller and medium-sized organisations with an income of under £1 million. Approximately 80% of our funds go to groups with an income under this amount. We may fund larger organisations where they have a very strong fit with our funding aims and priorities; where the organisation plays a unique and distinctive role; and where the organisation is developing a highly innovative or strategic project.

We are unlikely to fund large national organisations which enjoy widespread support.

We're not happy with your decision? Can we appeal?

If you have any complaints about how we have handled your proposal, you should in the first instance contact the member of staff who has been dealing with your organisation. If you are still not satisfied you should write to our Chief Executive who is responsible for the management of the Trust. If the complaint is regarding our Chief Executive you should write to the Chair of our Trustees.

However, please note that you cannot appeal any decision made by our Trustees about whether or not we fund your organisation.

Our funding proposal was rejected. When can we next reapply?

You have to wait six months from receiving your rejection letter before you can reapply.

Do you provide feedback on why our proposal was rejected?

We provide this in the rejection letter we send to you. If this is unclear or you require more detail please contact us and we'll aim to provide further feedback.

I've read that you fund special initiatives. What are these and how can I apply?

Special initiatives are where we want to make a more strategic impact and, where appropriate, influence the work of others. These are one-off, time-limited programmes of work and the ideas for them are developed by us.

In some instances, we will commission an organisation to deliver a piece of work and in others we will invite applications from agencies working in the field we have decided to focus on. When new special initiatives are open for applications we post details on our website and inform groups through our e-bulletin, which you can sign up to.

Details of our current special initiatives are available on our website.

We already have funding to deliver a government-funded contract, but it did not include enough funding to deliver all of the outputs in the contract. Will you fund the difference?

No. We do not subsidise contracts. These should be fully funded by whoever is purchasing the service and you should think carefully about all of the costs of delivering any contract before signing it.

The local authority recently funded us. But this funding has come to an end. Will you fund it instead?

We do not pick up any funding cuts made by a local authority or any other public body. However, often the funding from the public body is time limited and not an ongoing grant/contract. We may consider continuation funding in these cases, but this is rare. Generally where a public body has provided funding we would expect it to provide some continuation funding, otherwise it is unlikely that such a project could have any medium/long-term sustainability.

We do not consider funding from the lottery as funding from a public body and are therefore more likely to consider continuation funding for projects previously funded by the lottery or which have been funded by independent charitable trusts.

We provide education and training to individuals. We don't actually get people into work, but it provides an important stepping-stone in this direction. Will you fund it?

It is unlikely such work will be funded, as our emphasis is on helping disadvantaged individuals secure employment, rather than going onto college or volunteering. Whilst these are important steps, they are not the emphasis of this aim.

We realise many disadvantaged individuals are not close to the labour market, which is why we will consider funding long-term and holistic approaches, which may include building confidence and learning new skills, as long as this is coupled with other support which gives individuals a clear structured pathway into employment.

What is your definition of a recent arrival?

Our definition of a 'recent arrival' is generally an individual who has arrived in the UK within the last 10 years. Our priority is particularly on those who arrived even more recently than this, as they often lack information about living in the UK, and are therefore vulnerable to poverty, discrimination, isolation and exploitation.

We provide counselling to refugees and asylum seekers, but qualified individuals don't run it. Will you fund this?

No. Counselling and psychotherapy are specialist areas of work which require people who are qualified, have experience and receive regular supervision. Further information on accreditation, training and systems can be gained from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and the UK Council for Psychotherapy.

What do you mean by specialist immigration advice work?

Generally we expect this to be delivered by individuals with specialist knowledge. This may be at OISC level 3 or the LSC's quality mark in immigration at Levels 2 and 3.

We will also consider immigration advice work relating to a specialist issue e.g. for those seeking asylum because they are being persecuted because of their sexuality.

Do you fund political campaigning?

Yes. Campaigning and political activity are legitimate and useful activities which can bring about change. This is endorsed by the Charity Commission, which has produced useful guidance. However, we do not fund activities where organisations support one particular political party or individual.

We provide general support and training to community and voluntary organisations. Will you fund this?

No. We do not support such work. We have identified three key areas that we want to strengthen skills in:

• Campaigning and policy change
• Research
• Learning/evaluation.

The support you provide needs to be focus on one or more of these areas. We do not support generic capacity building.

We want to improve the skills of the staff that work for us. Will you fund this?

No. We do not fund individual organisations solely seeking funding to
strengthen their own internal capacity. We may fund a small element of this, where it is part of a wider project which fits under one of our other funding aims.

Do you provide any training to groups?

Yes. If you receive funding from us we offer support, which you may wish to take up. At present our main focus is on improving skills in monitoring and evaluation, but we have also provided training in dealing with the media, understanding research and other areas of work. We send details of this to groups that we fund where we think they may benefit from it.

There are many organisations providing support and details of these can be found on our links page.

What is a small community group?

For the purposes of our funding guidelines it is an organisation with an annual income of under £60,000. This figure is based on your last set of annual accounts. We expect groups to be rooted in their 'community' and we generally only fund those organisations which are run by their beneficiaries - what is normally referred to as self-help or user-led groups.

You support the inclusion and integration of recently established communities. What is your definition of recently established communities?

Recently established includes refugee and migrant communities which are fairly new to the UK. Our main focus is on those communities which have arrived in the last 20 years.

You support mother-tongue and/or supplementary schools, which provide creative educational opportunities. What do you mean by creative?

By creative, we mean activities that encourage self-expression and which have a strong level of interaction and involvement by the children and young people. Learning should be fun and an activity children want to attend.

How much can we apply for under this aim?

Groups can apply for up to £30,000 over one, two or three years, although most grants will be much smaller than this and the size of grant will depend on the need. As a guide, an average grant size will be approximately £16,000 in total.

We are a small group. Can we only apply under this aim?

Generally we would encourage small groups to apply under this aim, although you may also be eligible to apply under Aims 1-4 if your work falls within one of these aims and you have the skills, experience and capacity to undertake the work.

What are your monitoring requirements?

We believe that monitoring and evaluation is a useful way of helping organisations to assess the difference their work has made to their beneficiaries and the lessons that have been learned. Details of our requirements can be found here.

How do I claim my grant?

When we award you a grant we send you a pack which includes your grant conditions, a copy of which you need to sign and return to us. The pack also contains a quarterly instalment claim. You need to send this to us when you are ready to claim your grant. However, do not send this to us until you have met your grant conditions.

For example, if our funding is for a new post, you need to recruit the individual and send us details of who this is before we can release your first instalment.

Or if you need to secure match funding, this needs to be in place before we can release your first instalment.

When all the conditions have been met please send in your signed instalment claim. We pay quarterly in advance.

I have sent in my instalment claim, but it hasn't been paid yet. What do I do?

It usually takes us two to three weeks to arrange payment so please bear with us. Sometimes you may have sent in your instalment claim early and it cannot be paid until the next quarter is due. If you have not been paid after three weeks please contact your us and we will sort out your payment, or explain why it has been delayed.

Please also check that you your interim evaluation report is not due - this will be stated clearly on your last instalment letter. Your interim evaluation report has to be submitted mid-way through your grant, and we hold the subsequent payment until this has been submitted. If this is problematic, please ring us to discuss your situation.

I want to use your logo on our printed materials. Where can I find it?

This is available to download from our website and we ask that you read our logo guidelines on how it is to be used. If you have any difficulties please contact us.

We have had funding from you before. Can we reapply?

We support long-term strategies for dealing with poverty and inequality. Therefore organisations that have already received funding from us may apply again for work which is particularly effective and continues to meet our criteria and priorities. However, you should not assume we will award further funding and should also apply to other funders. If you wish to apply again for the same or different work, you should contact your relevant officer at least eight months before your current funding expires. Generally we do not provide more than one grant at a time.

I have a media enquiry who should I contact?

If you are responding to a press release please contact the relevant individual listed on it. If you are not sure who to contact, please e-mail us at press@trustforlondon.org.uk, or contact our Director of Policy & Grants, Mubin Haq who can be reached on 020 7606 6145.

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