Our small grants scheme

Funding from £500 to £3000

Community Food and Health (Scotland) has an annual small grants scheme available for groups and agencies in Scotland who wish to improve access to, and take up of a healthy, varied and balanced diet. Grants from £500 to £3000 are available and grant recipients are expected to spend their grant money within one year.

The small grant scheme opens in the spring and closes in the early summer. The 2009 small grant scheme will open on 21 April 2009.  Successful applicants usually receive their grants by the autumn. The opening of the small grant scheme is announced in our free newsletter Fare Choice as well as on this website.

The grant scheme is very popular. In 2008, less than one in five applicants were successful. See small grant recipients 2008/2009  to find out who received a grant in 2008.

What will we fund?

All applications must involve working with or within Scotland’s low-income communities to improve access to and take up of a healthy, varied and balanced diet.

All applications must tackle one or more of the barriers to healthy eating that were first outlined in the Scottish Diet Action Plan (1996). These are:

• Availability - such as the lack of access to fruit and vegetables of an acceptable quality and cost
• Affordability - such as the cost of getting to the shops as well as the cost of shopping
• Skills - such as the lack of confidence and skills for cooking or shopping
• Culture - such as long established dietary habits and reluctance to experiment with new foods

All applications must be for the costs of a new food activity or for developing the range, scale or sustainability of current food activity. We also accept applications for pilot projects or feasibility studies.

We will give priority to applications that show that they will be able to sustain their food activity or learning from their food activity in the future. We will also prioritise applications that show that their intended food activity is needed and wanted by those who will take part in it.

What we won't fund

• We will not fund the same or similar activity that we have funded before for the same group working in the same area
• We will not fund work that has been previously funded from another source
• We will not fund regular running costs to continue work that you are doing already – such as staff costs, rent, utility bills, etc

Who can apply?

We welcome applications from a wide range of groups and agencies working with or within low-income communities. (We recognise that ‘community’ also means ‘groups with a common interest’ as well as people that live or work in the same area). We are keen to encourage applications from all areas and types of organisations. We particularly encourage applications from community groups, voluntary organisations and social enterprises.

We welcome applications from new or existing groups and agencies, including from those that are new to community food activity and from those who have carried it out before. We also welcome applications from those who have applied for a grant from us before - whether successful or unsuccessful.

We will give priority to those groups or agencies linked to or working (or planning to work) in partnership with other agencies or whose planned project is part of a local plan or strategy, such as Food and Health Strategies, Joint Health Improvement Plans, etc. Partnerships could include groups such as: Community Planning, Community Health Partnerships or other groups appropriate to the applicant’s organisation.

Who can’t apply?

Individuals and/or private enterprises cannot apply for a grant from us.

How to apply

To find out more about the application process you can download the Information for applicants (123kb PDF) and a sample application form in standard print (68kb PDF) and a sample in large print (62kb PDF). Please note that these are the 2008 versions that may be updated in 2009.

You can also download sample grant conditions (122kb PDF) and a sample evaluation form (132kb PDF).

Full versions of the application form and revised guidelines will be available to download from this website when the 2009 grant scheme is officially launched on 21 April.

For information on funding and links to advice on filling in application forms see Advice and information on fundraising.

Further reading

To find out what is going on in food and health in your local area, visit your Local Authority and local NHS board websites. You should also be able to find out about your local Community Health Partnership (CHP) or Community Health and Care Partnership (CHCP) on these websites. Voluntary Health Scotland also has a list of contact details for all CHPs or CHCPs.
www.vhscotland.org.uk/members/chp_contacts.html

To find out about national policies around food and health, visit the Scottish Government's website www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/health/19133

For information on healthy eating see  or the Food Standards Agency website www.eatwell.gov.uk

The NHS Health Scotland website has information on food and health policy and healthy eating www.healthscotland.com