The Cancer Support Funding award will enable charities to provide a wide range of support services for cancer patients throughout NI, and will cover key areas in the cancer pathway; from pre-diagnosis, through to palliative and end of life care. These services are key support mechanisms towards the implementation of the Cancer Recovery Plan and the Cancer Strategy, and important in working towards the Department’s aim of building cancer service capacity in communities.
Fund guidance and criteria:
The Cancer Support Funding award will enable charities to provide a wide range of support services for cancer patients throughout NI, and will cover key areas in the cancer pathway; from pre-diagnosis, through to palliative and end of life care. These services are key support mechanisms towards the implementation of the Cancer Recovery Plan and the Cancer Strategy, and important in working towards the Department’s aim of building cancer service capacity in communities.
The Cancer Charities’ Support Fund will provide support of between £5,000 and £1 million for cancer charities.
The three categories of grant values are:
- £5,000 to £30,000 – Small Grant
- £30,000 to £500,000 – Medium Grant
- £500,000 to £1million – Large Grant
In exceptional circumstances higher awards to charities working together to deliver a proposal, may be considered.
Applications are welcome for projects that must have all the funds spent by March 2024. You can, however, apply for projects over 12 months or up to March 2024.
You should clearly outline in your application the duration of the project and costs associated for each year you are applying for. This will be used for reporting purposes and you should therefore be as accurate as possible when outlining your application costs.
Fund outcomes:
Specific outcomes that the Fund should deliver are:
- Prevention such as awareness raising sessions and campaigns
- Psychological support/counselling
- Palliative care
- Improved access to information and support services including financial/welfare/ benefits advice, and support available through new technologies
- Enhanced provision of, and access to, practical support for people with cancer
- Services to support physical and mental health and wellbeing
- Specific research into the experience of patients with cancer
- Provision of screening services, and
- Delivery of cancer rehabilitation programmes.
For an application to be successful, it must contribute to at least one of the above outcomes, depending on the level of funding applied for.
Funding considerations:
- Projects must align with the aims and delivery of the Recovery Plan and must not be seen as a replacement for Trust commissioning, or any other statutory funding support
- Priority will be given to organisations that are delivering projects to support cancer services through the provision of practical support and help to patients with cancer and their families
- Projects may support cancer services through the provision of advice, training, advocacy or research aimed at furthering issues/rights of cancer patients with government or other statutory bodies
- Innovative cancer service projects, or those of a pilot nature, which have the potential to enhance supports in the longer term, would be particularly welcome
- Joint applications from organisations for shared staff will be welcomed. Applications from organisations proposing to work together will also be considered, however, we will require the application to be submitted in the name of one lead eligible organisation
- Applications should demonstrate a need and ensure that a methodology is in place to determine how progress against a relevant outcome(s) will be measured. We would expect to see clear details of how the project will be evaluated within the application
- The assessment of applications may include consideration of the sustainability of the service to be delivered in the proposal
- The assessment of applications may include consideration of the geographical coverage of beneficiaries and/or projects
Who can apply:
- The charity must be providing or funding services in Northern Ireland. These services should be focused predominantly on people living with cancer, or their support structure
- Charities must be registered or awaiting registration with the Charity Commission
What can be supported:
- Projects which support delivery of at least one of the outcomes above
- Costs associated with project delivery only
- Proposals will be particularly welcome which focus on supporting those living in rural communities, and from the lesser heard/excluded or marginalised communities
- Delivery of Departmental objectives as outlined in strategic frameworks
- Funding for research linked to cancer patient experience will also be eligible, and
- Consideration of other sources of funding may be applied, for example: if the applicant is applying and/or in receipt of funding from any other DoH fund, or support from a Trust, the Foundation may prioritise funding for other applicants who have not accessed other such sources of funding
- Costs associated with IT equipment, providing it will support service delivery and enhance a particular service
- Volunteer expenses, including training
The fund will not support:
- The Community Foundation will not fund organisations or activities which promote causes that are contrary to our purposes. Causes and activities that are contrary to our purposes include, but may not be limited to, those outlined in our investment policy. We will not therefore fund organisations or activities which we determine are linked to the promotion of armaments, alcohol, human rights abuses, tobacco or pornography
- The advancement of religion. This includes organisations whose purposes include the advancement of religion
- CIC Companies Limited by Shares, or CICs without an asset lock clause. Eligible CICs must have at least three unrelated committee members, and/or the majority of the committee unrelated.
- The establishment of endowment of any school or institution providing further education within the meaning of the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1972
- The provision of assistance to any Housing Association within the meaning of the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1976
- Promotion of religious or political activity, including any flags and emblems that may deem to be associated with such
- Scientific research, unless focused on patient experience and that will support revised and enhanced services
- Fundraising activities
- Capital costs, other than small costs associated with IT equipment, and providing that the new technology is used to enhance a service
- Full cost recovery for management – we will offer a certain percentage which is directly linked to delivery of the project
- Cash awards to service users or personal items eg: wellbeing or food hampers
- Core organisational property costs such as rent, rates etc, unless directly associated with project delivery, eg: venue hire for sessions etc
- Celebration events and wellbeing packs
- Trips outside of Northern Ireland
- Applications from individuals
- Applications from statutory organisations
- Purchase of vehicles
- Holiday schemes
- Parties and shopping trips
- Activities that duplicate existing services
- Retrospective funding
- Substitution for statutory funding for example: if a Trust was in the process of funding a service and had recently stopped this support, this funding cannot be used to continue to prop up this service
- Organisations who have not complied with previous monitoring requirements
Allocation process:
The key steps in the allocation process are as follows:
- Charities will be invited to apply for funding by an online application, outlining the service they will deliver, including location/geographical reach, the number of people who would benefit, key output indicators and the cost of service provision
- There will be three different applications for each funding pot. If applicants are applying to a number of different funding pots, they must submit the relevant separate applications. In the event of oversubscription of a particular funding pot, we may prioritise organisations who have not yet availed of this funding
- Projects supporting a large number of beneficiaries will be prioritised
A review panel will consider applications and determine whether to award the grant or the level of the grant - Key output indicators will be agreed and monitored, to give assurance that the services were carried out and agreed outputs achieved. Applicants will be paid in installments and will only receive additional funding upon satisfactory receipt and acceptance of interim monitoring reports
- Following delivery of the service a review will be carried out and reported upon
Applicants will be required to provide the following with their application:
- A copy of their governing document, e.g. constitution – this must be in the name of the applicant organisation unless governed through an umbrella organisation
- A copy of the organisation’s most recent accounts
- Evidence of need for the project eg: stakeholder analysis
- For projects seeking over £250,000 a copy of their current organisational budget and their latest Management Accounts must also be submitted
- A copy of safeguarding policies
- A current account bank statement dated within the last three months
- A copy of equality policy
If you are unsure about any of the above text or have any other queries then please contact the Grants Team via e-mail applications@communityfoundationni.org
