Henry Smith Funding Masterclass

Since 1628, the Henry Smith Charity has worked to combat disadvantage and meet both the challenges and opportunities facing people in need throughout the country. One of the largest independent grant makers in the UK, the charity distributes around £30 million each year, the majority of which is through two programmes:

1. Improving Lives offers grants of between £20,000-£60,000 per year, over a maximum of 3 years, to cover project and running costs for small and medium sized organisations in the UK, who have an annual income between £50,000 - £2m (or in exceptional circumstance up to £5m)
2. Strengthening Communities offers grants of between £20,000-£60,000 per year for a maximum of 3 years, covering project and running costs for smaller organisations, with an annual income between £20,000-£500,000, based within and benefitting the most deprived areas (defined as  the bottom 10%, as per the Indices of Multiple Deprivation 2019)

Specifically, this session will give you:

• an overview of Henry Smith grant programmes
• clarity around the staged application process
• an understanding of how to design and develop your project ideas
• ability to tackle the application questions and make the best possible case for your project
• ability to evidence need and develop project outcomes
• methods you could use to develop your project budget
• techniques for writing high quality funding applications, particularly to Improving Lives or Strengthening Communities

Essential information for anyone who has been involved in writing applications to small or medium charitable trusts and now wants to submit a bid to the Henry Smith Charity.

If you are new to project development and bid writing, we recommend that you attend our Introduction to Fundraising training first. That session is taking place on Thursday 13 February 2020 - click here to visit the Introduction t o Fundraising page. If you have missed it, contact our Capacity Building team to arrange a meeting.

Please note: all of our funder specific masterclasses have been designed using our in-house experience of working with applicants to prepare and submit successful bids to the referenced funder. In the 2018/19 period, this experience enabled us to secure over £5m of funding for community projects. Where content includes specific input from the funder, this will be explicitly referenced in the description of the session.