Community Funding Criteria

The Purpose of Community Funding

The Community Fund was set up to support projects that will help communities or the environment within the Borough of Fareham. The first things we will consider when deciding if we are able to fund a project are:-

• Can it show that it will benefit a large number of Fareham residents?
• Will the project be accessible to the wider community?
• Will it be sustainable (i.e. will the project be able to keep running once the Community Fund money is spent)?

Who can apply?

Any community organisation or individual can apply for Community Funding. Organisations must have official papers that state that they are set up not to make profit. Applications from businesses will not be considered. Individuals must be able to show that they are applying on behalf of the community.

What can you apply for?

• In most cases you can only apply for funding to meet one off capital costs.
• If you are setting up a new project, you can apply for a one off payment covering revenue costs, for a limited period of time agreed with the Council.
• To help spread the benefit of Community Funding as wide as possible, we ask for an appropriate contribution towards the project from you.  The amount will depend on your charity's accounts, how many people the project will benefit and the support that you have in place already.
• If you are applying for more than £5,000, you will be expected to contribute at least the same amount of money to the project from other sources.
• You can only apply for funding for a project that has not yet started.
• If you have previously received Community Funding from us, you are not able to receive funding for 2 years after your last successful Community Funding application. Your application can still be assessed and decisions made, but the funds cannot be transferred before this timeframe has been met.

What we ask for

To help us to be able to consider your funding request and give you a swift answer, we ask for information and documents up front. These include things like a copy of your organisation's accounts (so we can prioritise our funding to projects that could not otherwise be funded) and a copy of quotes (so we can make sure your project is getting value for money). The full details of the information we request can be found on our checklist (141 KB).

How to apply

Once you have checked that your project meets the criteria, simply talk your idea through with your Ward Councillor or contact the Leisure and Community Team directly (telephone 01329 236100 or email leisure@fareham.gov.uk). We will be very interested to hear about your project and discuss how we can support you to make it happen.

If you would like further information on how the funding decision gets made, you will be able to find this on the Process for Community Funding page.

Learn from others

Previous reasons that we have not approved funding requests are:-

• They have come from businesses.
• They haven't provided the information we requested.
• The project doesn't benefit the wider community.
• Their project is already underway.
• We have identified other sources of funding that would be more appropriate for them.

The Leisure and Community Team will be very pleased to meet with you to answer any queries and support you through your application. Simply call us on 01329 236100 or email leisure@fareham.gov.uk.