Severn Trent’s Community Fund is open for applications from voluntary and community organisations in the Severn Trent Water region (which includes the West Midlands) with projects that improve community wellbeing.
The fund supports projects that will make an impact and meet ‘genuine community needs’ relating to:
- People – projects that help people to lead a healthier life and gain new skills
- Places- projects that help to create better places to live in and use
- Environment – projects that will help look after the natural environment, give people greater access to that environment or help look after water.
If your project doesn’t need to relate to all three of the areas above but, if it does, it could help. (By the way, if there’s a link to water in your proposal, that may also help.) STCF advise that if you are asking for more than £75k, they will expect your project to hit all 3 of its areas of interest.
They like reaching deprived areas. A connection to water is welcome.
The typical average grant is £15k-£20k and they get ball-park 10,000 beneficiaries a time. Any bid over £10k needs to show some matching money. Severn Trent has a maximum grant of up to £200k but this would be multi-year and hit all objectives and have very significant impact.
A wide range of groups are eligible: charities, CICs, non-profit companies, volunteer or community groups, schools and colleges and even local authorities and parish councils. There is a list of exclusions, but few will affect CQ members. You cannot apply for the same project twice (although you can apply a second time if its for a different project).
The project fund doesn’t have deadlines – you can apply at any time. Whereas bids for less than £10k are considered on a rolling basis, larger proposals are considered at a quarterly panel session. Panel dates are on the 1 April, July, October and January and the deadlines for larger projects to go to those panel meetings are 11 February, 12 May, 11 August and 10 November respectively.
Find out more at https://www.stwater.co.uk/about-us/severn-trent-community-fund/ which has links to projects that have already been funded including: SENSE – awarded £45,020 to create an inclusive sensory space at a centre for disabled children and their families; Woodgate Valley Urban Farm – awarded £7,684 to provide an accessible compostable toilet for a farm that offers wellbeing activities for the community; and Queen Alexandra College – awarded £10,000 to install a rainwater harvesting system and accessible pond for an outdoor learning campus used by disabled young people.