Large grants are available for charitable, benevolent and philanthropic organisations from across the UK for projects that improve the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged women and girls across the UK.
Funding body: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
Maximum value: Discretionary
Application deadline: 07/06/2020
Background
In the Autumn Statement 2015 the Chancellor announced the Tampon Tax Fund, which will allocate funds generated by VAT on sanitary products to projects that improve the lives of disadvantaged women and girls across the UK.
Objectives of Fund
The funding is for projects which address one of the following categories:
- Violence against women and girls.
- Young women’s mental health and well being.
- General programme (for which the Government has identified a number of sub-themes).
- There is particular interest in applications from women’s specialist charities and organisations whose projects include making onward grants to women’s specialist charities.
APRIL 2020 UPDATE:
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport welcomes applications that include activities that seek to address the consequences of coronavirus/COVID-19 for disadvantaged women and girls.
Value Notes
There is £15 million for the current fund with £905,000 for Wales; £530,000 for Northern Ireland; £1.57 million for Scotland; and £11.99 million for England.
The minimum grant is £1 million. There is no maximum level of grant.
The grant must represent more than 50% of the applicant’s collective annual income.
Grants may be for one-or-two-year projects, with a maximum of two years up until 30 June 2022.
As the minimum application amount is £1 million, neither Wales nor Northern Ireland have sufficient allocation to have a project which is delivered wholly and exclusively within their administrations. Therefore funding allocation for Wales and Northern Ireland will be made within UK wide projects, largely through projects making onward grants.
Match Funding Restrictions
The funders welcome applications that aim to use tampon tax funding to leverage additional resources, and therefore include an element of match funding.
Who Can Apply
Individual organisations or formal consortia of charitable, benevolent and philanthropic organisations based and working in the UK can apply.
This includes:
- Registered charities.
- Charitable Incorporated Organisations.
- Community Interest Companies (registered at Companies House or CIC regulator).
- Co-operatives that can provide their governing documents.
- Independent Provident Societies that can provide their governing documents.
- None of the above but the organisation has a formal constitution (set of rules) or governing document which shows its objectives and management structure.
- Individual organisations do not need to have a national remit but must demonstrate how proposed activities will be delivered across a number of regions or, where possible, more than one of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The funders are particularly interested in receiving applications from women’s specialist charities and organisations whose projects include making onward grants to women’s specialist charities.
Location
UK
Restrictions
The following are not eligible for funding:
- Projects which deliver wholly and exclusively in either Northern Ireland or Wales.
- Academic research
- Appeals
- Arts – unless projects can demonstrate significant benefit in terms of social inclusion
- Campaigning and awareness raising
- Capital projects or items of capital expenditure which exceed the lead organisation’s capital de minimis.
- Continuation of projects already in receipt of Tampon Tax Funds.
- Core costs – other than for those directly related to the project
- Debts or loans
- Fees for professional fundraisers
- Individuals
- Organisations that are mainly fundraising bodies
- Party political organisations
- Projects outside the funding priorities
- Promotion of religious beliefs
- Rapid response to emergency situations
- Retrospective funding
- Schools, colleges and hospitals
- Services run by statutory or public authorities
- Vehicles
- Advocacy and lobbying.
Eligible Expenditure
The funding is for projects that focus on one of the following categories:
- Violence against Women and Girls – Applications will be considered from organisations that support women and girls affected by or at risk of violence or abuse. This includes domestic abuse, sexual violence, so-called ‘honour-based’ abuse, stalking and prostitution and sex work, and we encourage applications from consortia that cover multiple crime types. Projects should include early intervention and prevention of VAWG crimes, as well as victims’ services. Victims services should be focussed on women and girls as these are the beneficiaries of the Tampon Tax Fund. However, support may be provided for their children if this is required to enable women and girls to receive the services they need.
- Young Women’s Mental Health and Wellbeing – Applications will be considered from organisations that promote mental wellbeing and prevention of mental illness for vulnerable and disadvantaged young women and girls aged between 9 and 25. This includes applications that promote mental wellbeing, public health prevention, early intervention, digital innovations, community-based provision and working across sectors.
General programme – Applications will be considered from organisations working to improve the lives of disadvantaged or under-represented women and girls. As an indication, the work may be in the following areas (this is not an exhaustive list) and proposals that address other issues will be considered:Alcohol and drug abuse. - BAME services.
- Education and employment.
- Engaging excluded and vulnerable women through sport.
- Female offenders.
- Gender equality.
- LGBTQI specific services.
- Multiple complex needs.
- Older women.
- Period poverty.
- Women with disabilities.
- Women with learning disabilities.
- Loneliness
All activities must be concluded and funds spent by 30 June 2022.
In 2020, applicants are invited to explain how they would use up to 10% of their grant funding to improve the sustainability of their organisations (at least 90% of grant funding must be used to deliver frontline services).
Applicants for projects which include making onward grants to small and medium sized charities are also encouraged to include a ‘sustainability’ element in the criteria for these onward grants. Onward grantees who are applying for up to £100,000 should be able to bid for up to 25% of their funding on sustainability and those applying for more than £100,000 should be able to bid for 10% of their funding on sustainability.
This funding could be used, for example, to:
- Upskill existing staff, improve functions such as IT, Marketing or fundraising, or to employ a business development expert to develop an improved operating and strategic model.
- Access support to build strategic thinking within their organisation.
- Improve impact assessment.
- Improve internal systems, processes and policies, most commonly in marketing, finance and IT.
- Access support to improve the financial position of their organisation, particularly to develop new funding streams and/or diversify income.
- In April 2020, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced that it now welcomes applications that include activities that seek to address the consequences of coronavirus/COVID-19 for disadvantaged women and girls.
How To Apply
The deadline for applications has been extended from midnight on Sunday 31 May to midnight on Sunday 7 June 2020 with notification of decisions in Summer 2020.
The guidance notes and the application form are available on the GOV.UK website.
The completed application form should be submitted by email to ttfapplications@culture.gov.uk
Payment Procedure
Payment is made in arrears and can only be paid in advance by exception.
Useful Links
GOV.UK – Tampon Tax Fund 2020-21