Community grants
Voluntary and Community Sector Strategy 2025
We’re refreshing our Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) Strategy. The current strategy is high-level and long-term. It visualises the sector’s future and explores what we need to continue to thrive. This means that much of what we found through engagement is still relevant today. However, some things have changed. This refresh provides an opportunity to reflect on what has changed and what we need to include in the strategy.
We’re planning many online sessions. They will help us share an understanding of the new changes and what we’ve learned over the past few years. The refreshed strategy will inform the design of a new grants programme for 2025/26 onwards. We’ll publish all presentations from these sessions on this web page.
Our online sessions
2024 to 2025 grants programme
The grants programme is one of the ways in which we aim to work in collaboration with the voluntary and community sector to meet our objectives of Working Together for a Better Hackney. To do this the programme focuses on supporting projects that deliver against the following priorities from Hackney’s Strategic Plan, and expects any grants within the programme to contribute to one or both of the following:
- promoting prosperity and wellbeing with targeted, positive action when needed
- building strong, cohesive communities that are part of the solution
The 2024/25 programme launched on 5 February 2024 and closed on 31 March 2024. We will publicise the full list of awarded grants once funding decisions have been made and grants confirmed with organisations.
Online information session
We held an online information session on Thursday, 8 February, 2pm to 3pm. Watch a recording of the session:
Who can apply for community grants
Organisations must be not-for-profit, value-driven and principally reinvest their surpluses to further social, environmental or cultural objectives. These are typically the following organisations:
- Registered charity or Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)
- Charitable company or Social Enterprise (companies must have asset locks, be wholly not-for-profit and without share capital)
- Community Interest Company (CIC)
- Company limited by guarantee (companies must have asset locks, be wholly not-for-profit and without share capital)
- Cooperative and Community Benefit Society
- Unregistered community group
- Structured group of residents (Community Chest only)
Private businesses and individuals are not eligible to apply for grant funding from this programme.
At least 80% of the people benefiting from the funding request must be Hackney residents.
You can find further information in our Hackney VCS Grants Prospectus 2024/25 (google doc). Also, refer to our Grants FAQs and key documents page.
Join our mailing list
If you’d like to be notified when the next round of grants opens and receive other key updates, please subscribe to our mailing list:
Support for the Voluntary and Community Sector
Further support is available for the voluntary sector through a number of organisations who can provide support and development on a variety of topics. We have created a document support for VCS organisations (google doc) with an overview of support available. We will continue to keep this updated. There are also a number of organisations within Hackney able to provide assistance through a variety of programmes.
If you feel that there is further support that your organisation needs, that is not available via the organisations listed in the document, contact us to arrange a conversation to discuss further. We are not always able to help organisations overcome every issue, however, our officers are happy to have a conversation with you to understand your organisation’s needs and see if there is any further support available.
Hackney CVS
Hackney CVS is an independent voluntary organisation which provides a range of information, advice and support to VCS organisations in Hackney.
The organisational development support team can provide help and guidance to organisations applying for the Hackney VCS grants programme, regardless of whether they are a Hackney CVS member or not. To book a session with them, visit HCVS – organisational development.
VCS organisations can also sign up to Hackney CVS’s weekly newsletter to receive updates on training and events, funding opportunities, community news and local politics.
Previous grants awarded
Using the 360Giving data standard, our awarded grants since March 2020 are available as Excel spreadsheets (listed by year the project started):
- VCS grants April 2024 to March 2025 (google sheets)
- VCS grants April 2023 to March 2024 (google sheets)
- VCS grants April 2022 to March 2023 (google sheets)
- VCS grants April 2021 to March 2022 (google sheets)
- VCS grants April 2020 – March 2021 (excel 37kb)
This work is licensed under the Open Government License v3.0. This means the data is freely accessible to anyone to be used and shared as they wish. The data must be attributed to the London Borough of Hackney.
GrantNav is a free-to-use platform that brings together grant data published using the 360Giving Standard, making it easy to view and explore. The tool enables users to search and report in detail on who, where and how much is given through thousands of grants from a wide range of UK grantmakers, with further data being added as new publishers share their grants openly.
Community Investment and Partnerships Team
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