Funding Round-up – Business and Employment (part 1), May 2022

Here is a collection of funding rounds from local and national organisations focusing on business and employment themes aimed at helping charities continue their work.

Whilst every effort has been made to provide up-to-date information, due to the varying nature and progress of public policies and other related activity, MVA do advise that some of the details below may have changed since the time of its issue and ask that readers please check with each organisation’s website for the latest news.

Kent Community Foundation - Employability, Skills and Enterprise
Grants of up to £5,000 are available from the Foundation for projects which raise the aspirations and increase the skills and opportunities of people who are far from the labour market.
The theme supports projects working with:

• Young people/NEETs,
• Young parents,
• Ex-offenders,
• Ex-forces,
• Those with financial barriers and
• Those with learning disabilities, mental health issues or physical disabilities.

The Foundation says the fund is looking for projects that provide accredited training, apprenticeships, meaningful work experience and life skills/employment skills workshops for the disadvantaged; and will also support strategic projects which aim to prevent young people from becoming NEETs.
The deadline for applications is 31^st May 2022, with further dates to be announced later.
More information can be found at the Foundation’s website.

Kent Community Foundation - Kent Social Enterprise Loan Fund
The Kent Social Enterprise Loan Fund (KSELF) offers Kent’s charities and social enterprises unsecured loans of between £10,000 and £100,000, with Investment readiness and business support also provided by Kent Community Foundation’s (KCF) dedicated Investment Fund Manager throughout the whole process.
The aim of the Fund is to spread the culture of social enterprise and break down the barriers which prevent enterprising social businesses from accessing finance.
This is a Continuous Rolling Programme, which means there is no deadline and applications can be submitted at any time.
For more information and how to apply, visit the KCF website.

Addington Fund from Arthur Rank Centre(Farming Businesses)
Financial assistance from the Arthur Rank Centre (ARC) is available to help relieve situations of financial hardship affecting farmers and rural businesses.
The Addington Fund (now an independent charity focusing on strategic housing) exists to help viable farming businesses with a grant when that business experiences financial hardship due to unforeseen and unexpected circumstances and it has no other means of short-term support.
At the time of writing, there was no recognised deadline, suggesting this is a Continuous Rolling Programme and applications can be accepted at any time.
More information and how to apply can be found at the Find’s website.

If you would like to see coverage of specific funding or grant rounds to help your charity, your project, your community group or enterprise, you can get In touch by email at info@mva.org.uk, you can also contact MVA via the website.