The City Bridge Foundation has expanded the scope of its small grants funding scheme and doubled the limit of the funding awards on offer, following a review.

After a five-month hiatus its small grants scheme has reopened and available to charities in the capital supporting a wider range of issues.

As well as environmental projects and those supporting older and disabled people funding will also be on offer to those supporting LGBTQIA+ communities and refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.

In addition, the maximum grant limited has been doubled to £20,000 or up to a half of a charity’s income.

A greater number of small charities are now eligible, with the income threshold for applicants doubled to £200,000 a year.

The decision to increase the scope of the scheme follows a review that launched in December last year and involved consultation with grantees, other charities, infrastructure organisations and funders.

“One thing we learned during the pandemic was the need to be flexible and adaptive, and to work more closely with our funded organisations, and potential applicants, when devising funding programmes,” said City Bridge Foundation grants committee chairman Paul Martinelli.

With this review, we wanted to ensure the views of potential grantees were reflected, to remove barriers small, user-led organisations have accessing funding and to offer a small grants programme which more closely matches the needs of London’s communities.

“The changes will enable us to address funding gaps for particular groups, and to reach even more small organisations, including those which are not registered charities but are doing vital work on the ground.”

Based on grants made already through the scheme the average award size if £18,000 and the grants have ranged from £1,500 to £50,000.

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