Guidance Notes
Grant Application Form
Please complete the online form as fully as possible and try to answer all the questions. Some questions are compulsory (marked with a *) and you will not be able to submit the form without completing them.
Notes for specific questions
9. Please inform us of the legal status of your organisation, e.g. registered charity, community interest company etc. The Norman Family Charitable Trust can only assist non-profit making organisations and is unable to assist individuals.
11. If your organisation’s latest accounts are not available on the Charity Commission web site, please upload them with your application. If some time has passed since your last accounts were posted on the Charity Commission and a more recent set (even if just in draft form) is available, please upload with your application. If your organisation is not a registered charity, such as a CIC or a voluntary/non-profit group, please upload your most recent accounts with your application.
13. What is your organisation set up to do? These are the aims as set out in your mission statement or constitution. What are the main activities that you carry out in order to meet your aims? How many people does your organisation regularly assist? Do you rely on volunteers?
14. This is the total amount you would like to request from the Trust. You must enter a figure here if you wish your application to be considered.
16. Please give us a brief outline of the purpose of your application. This will be used as a summary for our Trustees so please make it as clear and concise as possible. Try to limit it to no more than 40 words. There is opportunity to expand on your request at question 17.
17. This is your opportunity to go into more detail about your request for funding.
19. The Trust can only help those living in the South West of England. The Trustees wish to support work which benefits Devon, Cornwall and the more southern and western parts of Somerset (TA postcode area only – we won’t fund anything in Bath, Bristol etc unless it can be shown that there’ll be a significant benefit to people living in Devon, Cornwall or TA postcode area of Somerset), with a particular preference for Exeter and East Devon. Please indicate how your project will help the Trust achieve this aim. National charities need to be able to demonstrate how their work will benefit those in the preferred area of benefit.
20. Please list any previous applications you have made to the NFCT during the past 5 years and include whether you were successful or not, approximate dates and amounts awarded if applicable.
BACS payment details MUST be uploaded with your online form when submitting. Please ensure that these are clearly legible, showing the bank name, account name, sort code and account number.
General Information
The Trust initially considers all applications in date-received order at a Grants Sub Committee held every other month (January, March, May, July, September and November). Applications that specifically benefit Exeter and East Devon are generally given priority. Larger requests (>£10,000) may be deferred until the next full Trustees’ Meeting if the Sub Committee recommends that support at a higher level should be considered. These are held on a quarterly basis. The date of the next Grants Sub Committee is posted on the ‘News‘ page, along with the cut-off date – to be considered at this meeting, we need to have received your online application before midday on the cut-off date to allow enough time for trustees to assess the application prior to the meeting. You will receive confirmation of the outcome of your application shortly after the meeting by e-mail. If there is information missing, such as accounts, proof of bank details, quotes (if appropriate) or budget (if appropriate), we will request this via e-mail but please note that this may delay the consideration of your application until the subsequent meeting. We require you to acknowledge receipt of the grant by e-mail so that we know the grant has been safely received, and for our records – please wait until you have confirmed receipt of the grant in your organisation’s account before doing this. Those successful applicants who do not acknowledge receipt of their grant within a reasonable time period and after being chased up will have a flag on file to this effect and this could be detrimental to the consideration of a subsequent application. Applicants who do not return a monitoring report, if requested, will also have a flag put on their record after being chased up, and future applications will not be considered while this information remains outstanding.
In order to be fair to all applicants, Trustees will only consider one application per organisation per financial year unless there are exceptional circumstances. If you were awarded a grant or rejected during the current financial year, please wait until after 1st April to apply again. If you decided to withdraw your application prior to consideration, you may re-apply at any time. Please remember to complete any previous outstanding monitoring report (if requested) before applying for a new grant.
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