Criteria

The Foundation will only consider applications from schools and organisations that benefit:

• Children or young people under the age of 25 who are
• Permanent residents of named London boroughs (see below), and
• From disadvantaged backgrounds or areas of high deprivation.
   

London boroughs are Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth, Westminster and the City of London.

Priorities

The Foundation has four areas of focus for grant giving, which are as follows:

• Widening Participation in Further & Higher Education
• Truancy, Exclusion and Behaviour Management
• Prisoner Education
• New Initiatives

There are one or more priorities for each area of focus.  Details of the priorities and our aims and objectives for each area of focus are set out in our document ‘Organisation Grants: Priorities for Grant Making’. 

Duration and size of grants

Many of our grants are for one year, but grants can also cover activities lasting two or three years.  In such cases, we may taper the grant in the second and third years.

Our budget for grants to schools and organisations in 2011/12 is £800,000.  Most grants we make are for sums between £10,000 and £30,000.  There is no minimum or maximum grant size.  The amount you request should be the amount you need for your project.

How to apply

The Foundation operates a two stage application process – an initial enquiry and a full application stage. 

Stage 1         

Complete and submit our Initial Enquiry Form.  The form is available on our website and on request from the grants team at our office (Sir John Cass’s Foundation, 31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY. Tel 020 7480 5884).  You can submit your enquiry online, or send it to us by post.

The form asks for:

• outline information about your proposed project
• information about how the project meets the Foundation’s priorities, and
• a summary of the project that includes the following information:
  - the aims of the project including outputs and outcomes
  - how the project will be delivered
  - the duration of the project, including when and where it will take place, and
  - a budget covering project costs.

Invitation to respond to Stage 2

We will consider your enquiry and inform you, within three weeks, whether or not you may proceed to Stage 2.  If we have any queries we may contact you during this time to discuss details of your project submitted in the Initial Enquiry Form.  We receive a large number of applications.  Unfortunately, this means that good projects sometimes have to be refused even if they meet a priority.

If we invite you to proceed to Stage 2 and submit a full application, we will send you a copy of our Stage 2 Application Guidelines for Schools and Organisations.

Stage 2         

Complete your detailed application and send it to us with copies of your Memorandum and Articles of Association (or Constitution), and your organisation’s latest annual report and accounts.

Assessment and decision making process

On receipt of your application our staff may meet with you as part of our assessment process.  After we have received responses to any queries and any further information requested, a report on your application will be considered by the Foundation’s Grants Committee, whose decision is final. The Grants Committee meets in March, June and November each year.  It normally takes between two and four months from receipt of a full application until a decision is made.

Notification of the decision       

All applicants will be sent formal notification of the outcome of their applications within two weeks of the Committee decision. 

Successful Applicants

Those who are offered a grant will be sent a formal offer letter and copies of our standard terms and conditions of grant.  Copies of our standard terms and conditions of grant are available on our website.  Additional conditions are sometimes included depending on the nature of the grant.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Staff will contact you to clarify and agree how the outputs and outcomes for your project will be monitored and evaluated.  Your project will be visited at least once during the lifetime of the grant.  If your grant covers more than one year you will be asked to submit a progress report for each year.  Continuation of multi-year grants is dependent upon satisfactory progress towards agreed outputs and outcomes.  At the end of the grant you will be asked to provide a final report. 

The Foundation provides guidance on the structure and content of these reports.

Unsuccessful Applicants

Applying for funding is a competitive process and the Foundation’s grants budget is limited.  Because of the high volume of applications received, good projects sometimes have to be refused, even if they meet a priority.  All applications are assessed on merit.

If your application is refused you can apply again twelve months after the date you submitted your last application.

What we will not fund

There are many activities and costs that the Foundation will not fund.  The following list gives you an idea of the type of activities and costs the Foundation cannot support. 

• projects that do not meet a Foundation priority
• conferences, seminars and academic research
• holiday projects, school journeys, trips abroad or exchange visits
• supplementary schools or mother tongue teaching
• independent schools
• youth and community groups, or projects taking place in these settings
• pre-school and nursery education
• general fund-raising campaigns or appeals
• costs for equipment or salaries that are the statutory responsibility of education authorities
• costs to substitute for the withdrawal or reduction of statutory funding
• costs for work or activities that have already taken place prior to the grant application
• costs already covered by core funding or other grants
• Curriculum enhancing projects
• capital costs, that are exclusively for the purchase, repair or furnishing of buildings, purchase of vehicles, computers, sports equipment or improvements to school grounds.

If you are not sure whether or not your project will fit our criteria or priorities, have any queries about making your application or the application process, please contact us for advice.