Local Initiatives Fund application guidance

We cannot give grants to unconstituted groups, so if you are applying as an individual or unconstituted group, you may need a community group to hold the grant for you.

This community group should be Islington-based, constituted and meet the council's minimum requirements for the Local Initiatives Fund. The community group should submit the application (working with the un-constituted group and detailing the nature of the relationship) and the report after the project, and will be responsible for holding the grant on behalf of the group, if successful.

If you do not know any local community groups or voluntary and community sector organisations that can help support your application we may be able to help you with this. Please contact LocalInitiativesFund@islington.gov.uk.

Local councillors will be looking to support applications that deliver benefit to the residents of their ward. We strongly advise you to contact all three councillors for each ward prior to applying. Please note that as of 5 May 2022, the number, boundaries and names of wards in Islington have changed. Please ensure you are applying to the correct ward.

• Enter the relevant address into the 'Your local area' tool 
• Use the interactive map. To view the new ward boundaries, go to ‘Show Layers’, ‘Democratic Services’, then check the box for ‘Wards & Councillors’.
• View the PDF map of the 17 wards.
• Find out who your local ward councillors are.
• If you are planning to deliver across several wards, it is recommended that you try to contact at least one councillor from each of these wards.
• If applying to one ward, we would recommend you try to contact all three councillors, rather than just one, though you may only get a reply from one.

If you have difficulty contacting a councillor, please email LocalInitiativesFund@islington.gov.uk.

Islington Council is a Living Wage funder. This means we seek to ensure that all voluntary sector jobs which are wholly or partially funded by an Islington Council grant, pay at least the London Living Wage.

Question: Are employees or volunteers helping with running the project or event?

• Your organisation must pay all staff the Living Wage Foundation’s London Living Wage as a minimum.
• Your organisation must implement annual living wage adjustments to staff pay/salaries as soon as possible and within six months of the annual living wage announcement in November.
• Guidance from the Government on how to manage your volunteers states that volunteers shouldn’t be paid for their time but can receive payment for any out-of-pocket expenses.

Question: Please provide a detailed overview of the project/event including the aims and objectives

• Please tell us about the project you are seeking a Local Initiatives Fund (LIF) award to support. This can also include local improvements which may be carried out by council departments.
• If you are planning to hold a street party or festival, view the event and festival guidance. Please note you may need to seek additional permissions for your project/event.

Question: Which sections of the community will benefit from this project/event?

• Please provide information on how the project/event may benefit those from across the nine protected characteristics.
• Please provide information on how the project/event may be targeted at a specific community or group (such as families, women, young people etc)

Question: How many Islington residents will benefit?

• Please advise or estimate the total number of Islington residents who are going to benefit.

Question: If you know how many people will participate from each of the wards (even if approximate), please provide numbers alongside the wards below.

• Please tell us which wards your project’s beneficiaries will come from and the numbers expected from each ward.
• At least 75% of beneficiaries should be Islington residents, we understand this may not always apply to larger events/festivals.

Question: Delivery period

• Please note that applications should aim to start at least three months from the application date.
• Please note that you have 12 months from the award date within which to spend the funding
• We want to know when your project will start and end in order to inform ward councillors who may want to visit your project.
• If your project is ongoing, we would like to know the timeframe within which the funding applied for will be spent. We appreciate this may differ from the project end date which could be ongoing.
• If your project will deliver regular sessions/classes (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly), please state here how long each session is and when and how often they happen.

Question: Is your project focused on or linked to the council priorities detailed in our strategic plan?

• Please see the council’s strategic plan, Islington Together
• Please provide information on how your project aims to address the council’s priorities.

Question: Project costs

• The minimum grant award is £250 and a minimum of £50 per ward should be requested by organisations submitting proposals to more than one ward.
• Please be specific when providing a breakdown of how the grant will be spent e.g. ‘performance’ is too general and could include various costs, like the cost of performers, venue hire, props, etc.
• Please ensure that the total amount requested through LIF and any match funding, add up to the total amount needed to run your project.
• LIF cannot be spent on the purchase of alcohol.

Your organisation should have up-to-date documents in place and we may request these at a later date. Please do not submit supporting documents with your application. If you do not have these or do not have plans to put these in place in the near future, please see the guidance under "Section 1: Your organisation" and / or email LocalInitiativesFund@islington.gov.uk.

Constitution

• Governing document outlining your group’s aims and objectives

Annual audited accounts or accounts signed by chair or treasurer

• If you do not have audited accounts, an informal record of income and expenditure signed by your chair or treasurer should be in place e.g. spreadsheet, takings book, etc.
• If you have been operating for less than a year, a record of any income and expenditure to date signed by your chair or treasurer, or a statement from you to confirm that you have not incurred any income or expenditure since you started may be requested.

Most recent bank statement

• We want to make sure that the council is not awarding funding to organisations that are in financial arrears/ debt in order to ensure proper use of public money.
• We will use your bank information to set you up on the council finance system to be paid.
• If you are new and do not have a bank account at the time of applying, we do not need a bank statement but you may be asked to submit a letter from the bank confirming your new account details.

Safeguarding children policy

We want to know that your organisation is committed to reducing harm to children. Policy guidance can be obtained from Voluntary Action Islington.

• Please note that model policies will need to be adapted for your organisation or group.
• In your policy, we would expect (as a minimum) a list of the four types of abuse, how you would recognise abuse, what you would do / who you would contact if you are worried about a child, how you train your staff or volunteers in safeguarding and the name of your designated safeguarding lead.
• If your project is exclusively focused on children or young people we may ask to see further information.

Safeguarding adults policy

We want to know that your organisation is committed to reducing harm to adults and has adopted appropriate policies and practice.

• A safeguarding adults policy shows that an organisation has a commitment to safeguarding adults with care and support needs and promoting their wellbeing.
• Rather than health and safety style risks and responsibilities about supervision of people, a safeguarding adults policy shows that your organisation has a zero tolerance approach to the abuse or neglect of vulnerable adults and knows what to do if this happens.
• The policy should contain a list of information about what abuse is (i.e. different categories and what that might look like) and a section that tells people what to do if they suspect that a vulnerable adult is being, or is at risk of abuse or harm.
• We would recommend that any organisation that either provides a service to or is accessed by adults at risk i.e. people who are elderly, disabled or have other health problems or vulnerabilities (which sometimes are not visible) should have a Safeguarding Adults Policy.
• Voluntary Action Islington has model policies, resources and toolkits.

Insurance documents

All recipients of LIF need to indicate that they have a public liability insurance policy in place before any funding can be released. This insurance will need to cover the project that is being funded by LIF.

• If your proposal is to deliver an external activity or event (such as hiring a coach for a trip or delivering a festival) you will need to obtain the partner organisations’ insurance documents (Public Liability Insurance, Employers Liability Insurance and Professional Indemnity Insurance).
• See the Insurance Policy Guidance Notes which provides information on what insurance you should obtain for your project or event. These additional insurance documents from your partner organisations or providers do not need to be submitted to us.

Please note that you will be expected to submit a monitoring form after your project has finished.

• If for any reason there are substantial changes needed to the use of the funding, prior written permission for the change must be obtained from us.
• As part of the monitoring procedure for this grant we may carry out monitoring visits to a number of projects. If we intend to visit your project, we will contact you in advance to arrange a date for this.
• You may be asked to provide evidence of expenditure for your project or event (such as copies of receipts and invoices) so please ensure you have this documentation available.