CAF RESILIENCE FUND PHASE 2: Expression of Interest GUIDANCE NOTES

Please use these notes to help you complete the Expression of Interest form (EOI). They provide further detail on the information we require for your submission and we recommend that you read them fully before applying. Please pay particular attention to our budget guidance for details on which costs you can include within your funding request.

About The Fund

The funding for the CAF Resilience Fund has been provided by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), as part of its Community Match Challenge, and kindly matched by the Covid-19 Support Fund, created by the insurance and long-term savings industry.

The CAF Resilience Fund is focused on those communities hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Phase 1 saw the distribution of £20 million of emergency funding to help organisations survive and deliver rapid relief from the impact of the pandemic. Phase 2 will provide grants that enable organisations to adapt and thrive; to continue to deliver the services that support the needs of beneficiaries whilst also building organisational resilience.

Phase 2 will deliver grants in two parts which will comprise:

  • the provision of a main grant to enable you to adapt and thrive. This grant can fund either new or existing activities, but there should be a clear link to your organisational aims and the sustainability of both your services and your organisation as a whole.
  • An additional resilience support grant to utilise external services to help strengthen your sustainability for the future

These grants will work together, to enable you to continue to deliver your activities, whilst also looking at how your organisation can strategically change and adapt in order to respond to new and future challenges.

We do not see resilience as purely the ability of your organisation to withstand unexpected shocks. To us resilience is about being agile and flexible, competitive and robust. It is about your organisation being able to make the right decisions, at the right time and having a shared understanding of why you exist, the impact you are having and how you are going to maintain that. Your funding request should look at ways to boost your organisational resilience whilst continuing your vital service delivery.

Read an overview of the findings from the pilot CAF Resilience programme, which may give you useful additional information.

The Grant Portal

To begin a new EOI form

If you apply for this programme you will be directed to our online application system, you can only apply for this programme through the grant portal as outlined below.

The button below will take you to the Expression of Interest form which is accessed through CAF’s online grant portal.

Start a new EOI form

Follow the instructions included in the link to create a portal ID. You can save your form at any time and return to it at a later date.

To resume an existing application

To return to a partially completed or submitted form you will need to log in to your account at the grant portal by clicking below:

Return to an existing application

EOI Question Guidance

The following is a copy of the EOI questions with additional information and guidance on how to best answer each section. We have also set up a Resource Page, where you can find all the supporting resources in digital form.

SECTION 1 – Contact details

Is this EOI written in your first language – Yes or No question?

All applications must be written in English and we will also require any supporting documents to be in English. Fluent English, however, is not assessed as part of any of our grant programmes. We assess all applications on the detail of their request and the documentation provided, not on how fluently they are written. We ask applicants whether they are applying in their first language to ensure assessors do not apply unconscious bias when reading applications.

Primary contact details 

These details should relate to the person who will be the primary contact for all correspondence.

  • Primary contact name and title: This should be the name of the person submitting the EOI
  • Email Address: This must be a regularly monitored inbox and contactable address
  • Contact numbers: These should be the primary contact numbers. Please provide a landline (if available) and a mobile number
  • Your role: Please provide your job title, or position in the organisation

SECTION 2 - Organisation Details

Organisation Name: The registered name of your organisation.

Also Known As: If you are known by another name please also include this

Address: This should either be the office address of the organisation including nearest City and Postcode

Telephone number: Please provide a telephone number which is easily contactable

Legal Entity: For example Registered Charity, Company or other

Charity Number: Please include the registered number here

Companies House Number: Please include the registered number here

NB. Please provide both numbers if appropriate

Date Established: As shown on Charities Commissions or Companies House websites

Country: Please use the drop down to select in which UK Country your organisation operates. If you operate nationally, please select United Kingdom

If operating in England, in which region does your organisation’s activities primarily take place? Please use the drop down to specify the MAIN region in which you operate, for example North West

Please provide an overview of your organisation’s activities:
Broadly describe the activities your organisation carries out – this should strongly reflect your mission statement (100 words maximum)

Is the main focus of your organisation working with people with disabilities?
YES/NO question

No. of permanent employees:
Please state how many full time equivalent staff you currently employ. This includes people who are presently furloughed. Please round up to the nearest whole number

No. of volunteers:
This is number of people who regularly volunteer.

What was your organisation's total reported income in your last financial year?
This must be the figure from your last filed accounts.

If your income has changed significantly from previous years and you would like us to take this into account, please provide an explanation here.
If you would like us to take into account any significant changes to income please provide a brief explanation of what the difference is and why.

SECTION 3 – Main questions

Q.1. How have both your organisation and/or beneficiaries been disproportionally affected by the Covid-19 pandemic? (Max 200 words)

  • Describe how your organisation’s income has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
  • Explain how your organisation has been affected in other ways during this time? For example staffing changes or a reduction/increase in service delivery
  • How have your beneficiaries been disproportionally affected by the Covid-19 pandemic?
  • How have you stayed in touch with your beneficiaries during this time and have you changed any of your activities/services to adapt to changing needs?


Main grant guidance

The main grant should do more than support you to survive, it should enable your organisation to adapt and thrive. You can use the grant to deliver the services that support the needs of your beneficiaries supporting both established activities and also new ways of working that you may have identified or developed in response to the pandemic. Tell us how you have engaged and consulted with your beneficiaries demonstrating to us that your activities are responsive to and shaped by the individuals and communities your support. You can include some of your central/core costs, but you should establish that these will help you work strategically and look to the long term sustainability of both your services and your organisation.

Q2.  How much are you applying for in your main grant?

You can apply for a grant of between £50,000 and £350,000, but we are unlikely to support grant requests which represent more than 30% of your last filed annual income. All funds must be spent by the end of March 2023

Please see budget guidance below for information on eligible costs and suggestions for how to broadly frame your budget. We will be asking for more detail on your budget if you are successful in progressing to the second stage of our application process.


Q3.  Tell us about the services and activities you want to fund with the main grant (Max 150 words)

What services and activities will be funded and how do these relate to the needs of your beneficiaries?

A portion of your central or core costs can be included in the request but there should be a rationale for how these directly support either service delivery or contribute to your longer term sustainability.

Please see information listed below about eligible costs and suggestions on how to frame your funding request.

Resilience support grant guidance

An additional £20,000 of funding will be available to each successful applicant and this should be used to access additional expertise, support and advice to help develop your resilience plans. This will allow you to bring in external specialists, consultants, facilitators or trainers to look at needs you have identified that will boost your organisational resilience. There may also be specific training that you want your staff to access to boost their skills. We would encourage you to take a holistic approach to organisational resilience and think carefully how you want to utilise these funds. It is likely to include elements such as governance, mission, awareness, income, partnerships and processes. Further details will be given if you are a successful grantee.

Q4. What does organisational resilience mean to you? (Max 150 words)

We would like to know what the term organisational resilience means to your organisation. A resilient organisation is able to deliver consistently and over the long term on its mission, being able to adapt and respond to its operating and wider environment, but what does that mean for your organisation?

Briefly, what aspects of becoming a resilient organisation have you identified, how do you see yourselves making the changes needed to get there?



Q5. What are your plans for utilising the funds from your resilience grant? (Max 150 words)

Describe the key areas of need for your resilience building and how you hope to address these areas with this additional grant.

If you are successful in progressing to the second stage of our application process we will give you further details about how we will support your resilience building activities through the activities of our Resilience Programme Manager.

General budget guidance

If your organisation is to adapt and thrive it’s likely that you will be looking at a number of different areas and your budget should reflect this. We are expecting both grant budgets to address a number of areas and not be dominated by any one. Taking a strategic approach when putting your request together is likely to strengthen your application. We want to know that you are planning for the long term and are looking at a range of issues within your organisation. Try to give us a clear rationale for how your budget request will help you adapt and thrive.

For example, CAF is unlikely to provide your organisation with funding for a major IT upgrade unless you have demonstrated how this benefits service delivery or your long term sustainability. Some capital items can be included but applications where they are the main focus are unlikely to be funded in full. Similarly an application looking solely at fundraising for the resilience support grant is unlikely to be successful, we want to see a more holistic approach to organisational resilience building where you have considered other relevant strategic developments.

The following list details possible areas for your main funding request, but this is by no means an exhaustive list. In all cases the additional need for long term sustainability planning should also be addressed:

Staff costs

  • can include pension and NI contributions
  • can include provision for staff directly engaged in fundraising

Core costs such as rent, insurance, utility costs etc

Activity or project costs

  • must include a clear rationale of how these costs feed into your long term sustainability for service delivery plans

Volunteer costs

  • costs to service the existing volunteer base
  • costs to develop a new volunteer base

Organisational development costs

  • can include digitalisation, IT or communication costs when demonstrated it has an impact on sustainability, such as diversification of income

Equipment costs

  • which are relevant to long term adapt and thrive goals

Capital expenditure

  • this should be reasonable and proportionate and not form the bulk of your funding request.



Ineligible costs for both parts of the grant

We will not consider funding requests for the following:

  • Rebuilding reserves
  • Retrospective funding, that is expenditure prior to confirmation of your grant award
  • Expenditure taking place after the end of March 2023 – we expect to make awards in the Autumn of 2021
  • Activities that make profits for private gain
  • Campaigning activities
  • The promotion of religion and religious activities
  • Political or lobbying activities
  • Loan or debt repayments
  • Re-granting to another organisation

Section 4 - Declarations

Additional products and services from CAF:
Please opt in here if you are interested in further details from CAF.

These declarations must be completed before submission.

By submitting this application you understand and confirm that:

  • you have read and understood the privacy notices as outlined below
  • you are able to sign and confirm commitments on behalf of this organisation
  • no controllers/directors of your organisation will receive any direct benefit from this grant
  • you will use the CAF Resilience Fund Phase 2 to support charitable activity in the UK
  • the information you have provided in this application is correct. This particularly relates to:
    • what your organisation does and its current financial situation
    • describing your organisation’s activities and areas of operation
    • how you would use a grant to support your organisation and
    • what will you spend the money on to make it happen

Privacy Notices

If you apply for this programme you will be directed to our carefully selected online service provider, click here to see their privacy policy Blackbaud

CAF’s privacy notice can be found at CAF Privacy Policy

ABI’s privacy notice at ABI Privacy Policy

 

Tips for using the online Expression of Interest (EOI) form

  • We recommend that you click the 'save' button regularly when working on your EOI.
  • Use the orange tiles at the top to navigate between the pages. Do not use the 'back' and 'forward' buttons in your browser.
  • Your session will time out after 120 minutes of inactivity at which point any unsaved changes will be lost (you will see a warning 10 minutes before this). We recommend clicking 'save and finish later' before you leave your computer for any period of time.
  • For any numeric questions, just use whole numbers. Do not use commas, decimal points or any other symbols or punctuation.
  • It may be helpful to gather together information about your organisation's mission, activities, staff/volunteer numbers etc. before you start.
  • For many questions, you can click on the blue 'i' box for additional help and tips on answering the question.

If you have any difficulties with the online portal, please email us at CAFResilience@cafonline.org

For organisations working with (and led by) BAME communities, please ensure you submit your EOI before the deadline of midday on Wednesday 8th September 2021

For organisations working to transition young adults (16-35) into employment through reskilling, please submit your EOI before the deadline of midday on Wednesday 15 September 2021.

Forms received after this time will not be considered.