Course description

Someone has said "we should apply for a grant", and now it's your job. You know your group does good work, but the funder's website is full of priorities, criteria and word limits, and you're not sure where to start, how much to ask for or what a good answer looks like. This course takes you from "we need money" to a finished, honest, well-planned application, and on to what happens after the decision.

It's a full course, not a quick tour. There are 10 sections and 50 written lessons, and every lesson ends with a practical task for your own group or a practice scenario. You follow Turid, the part-time coordinator of a small community kitchen, through a year of applications: a rushed first letter that's turned down, a letter to a small family trust that's funded in full, a council grant that pays for most of a larder upgrade, and a three-year application to a lottery-funded programme. You see her drafts, her budgets and her mistakes, and what she learned from each. Every section has a practice pack with a worksheet, model answers, a cheat sheet and ready-to-use tools, including a funding pipeline spreadsheet, a prospect scoring sheet, a budget workbook that works out your share of core costs, a letter template, a permission form for stories, a monitoring plan and a review checklist.

What you'll learn

• Getting started: how grant funding works, the kinds of funder and what each wants, what funders check before they read a word, the registration rules in each UK nation, restricted funds, the Code of Fundraising Practice and a funding readiness check.
• Planning your funding: turning a wish list into costed needs, a funding strategy on a page, a funding calendar and pipeline log, sharing the work, and how trustees approve applications and manage conflicts of interest.
• Finding the right funders: where to look, reading guidelines closely, researching past grants and typical amounts, scoring each funder for fit, and talking to funders before you apply.
• Building your case: showing the need with real evidence, involving the people you serve, writing a case for support, the chain from activities to outcomes, and why your group is the right one.
• Budgets and money: building a budget line by line, full cost recovery, match funding and in-kind support, budget notes and VAT, and an honest answer to "what happens when the grant ends?".
• Writing the application: answering exactly the question asked, plain and specific writing, stories and quotes with consent, letters to small trusts and online forms.
• Outcomes, evaluation and policies: measurable outcomes and realistic targets, light-touch measurement, monitoring and evaluation answers, inclusion and accessibility, safeguarding, risk and policies.
• Different kinds of funder: small family trusts, lottery-funded programmes and expressions of interest, council grants and the basics of subsidy control, local funds and businesses, and capital grants.
• Reviewing, submitting and after the decision: reviewing with fresh eyes, final checks, handling a rejection, accepting a grant and its conditions, and reporting well.
• Final project and next steps: a complete application for your own group or the practice scenario, a funding library and monthly routine, and a twelve-month funding plan.

Who it's for

Staff, trustees and volunteers in small and medium-sized charities and community groups across the UK: the coordinator asked to "do the funding" alongside their job, the trustee who signs off applications, the volunteer who helps with research or checking. You don't need any experience of writing applications. If you don't have a group of your own, a complete practice scenario lets you work through every stage. The course covers grants from trusts, foundations, lottery-funded programmes, councils and community funds; it doesn't cover bidding for public contracts or fundraising from the public. All the funders in the course are fictional, and you'll learn to check each real funder's own current guidance.

What will I learn?

• Check your group is ready to apply, with the documents, registration and policies funders look for
• Plan what to raise money for, with a needs list, a funding strategy on a page and a pipeline log
• Find funders that fit, read guidelines closely and decide where to apply with a simple fit score
• Show the need with real evidence and involve the people you serve in shaping a project
• Build an honest budget with workings, a fair share of core costs, match funding and budget notes
• Write plain, specific answers, letters to small trusts and online forms, using stories with consent
• Set measurable outcomes and plan monitoring, inclusion, safeguarding and risk
• Approach small trusts, lottery-funded programmes, councils, local funds and capital funders
• Review and submit applications, learn from rejections, accept grants properly and report well

Frequently asked questions