The Pressure Group Fund

Purpose Of The Fund

The Pressure Group Fund has been established in recognition of the contribution groups and people in our society, who are working towards supporting social change, can make through direct civic action, lobbying and campaigning.  It is one way in which the Foundation can be responsive to needs and issues facing communities.

This Fund Aims To Encouarge

• Applications are invited for projects that can demonstrate how they are trying to address social injustice and what the impact of their work will be.  In particular how they will encourage civic action, working with groups and individuals to get their voices heard by decision-makers.
• Priority will be given to projects that demonstrate that they are representing minorities whose voices are excluded from current decision-making.

What Level Of Grants Is Available?

Grants size – £1000, with potential for further £1000

What Does This Fund Support?

• Examples of projects where we can offer some support include groups who wish to promote discussion and debate on key issues, educating local people on specific issues, enhancing democratic participation and diversity where it is not currently happening, articulating issues that local politicians and government decision-makers are not currently addressing adequately.

What We Cannot Support

The Foundation will not fund organisations or activities which promote causes that are contrary to our purposes.  Causes and activities that are contrary to our purposes include, but may not be limited to, those outlined in our investment policy.  We will not therefore fund organisations or activities which we determine are linked to the promotion of armaments, alcohol, human rights abuses, tobacco or pornography.

In addition the fund will not support: 

• • The advancement of religion.  This includes organisations whose purposes include advancement of religion
    
  • The establishment of endowment of any school or institution providing further education within the meaning of the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1972
    
  • The provision of assistance to any Housing Association within the meaning of the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1976
    
  • Promotion of religious or political activity, including any flags and emblems that may deem to be associated with such
  • Community Interest Companies (CICs) Limited by Shares, or CICs without an asset lock clause.  Eligible CICs must have at least three unrelated committee members, and/or the majority of the committee must be unrelated
  • Trips outside of Northern Ireland 
  • Projects that encourage violence 
  • Purchase of vehicles and general capital costs
  • Running costs of large organisations
  • Holiday schemes
  • Parties and shopping trips

Who Can Apply?

• Constituted and unconstituted groups ie: groups of people coming together to address a particular issue who do not have any formal governance structure
• In the event of groups coming together who do not have any formal governance structure payment can be made to an individual as long as the group provide evidence of spend on as agreed in the award offer.  Payment can be made directly to the supplier if either the Foundation or the applicant believes this to be appropriate.

In the event of payments directly to the applicant, they must have access to a current account to enable the Foundation to make a payment via the BACS system.

Who Cannot Apply?

The funds are not available to:

• Individual applications and/or applications pursuing private economic interest

Important Notice:

Due to the popularity of the Pressure Group Fund we are now nearing the position where the funds will be fully allocated. The Community Foundation will therefore close applications to the Fund at 1.00pm on Friday 30th June.