If you're new to seeking funding from Cheshire Community Foundation, watch this short video to meet our friendly team and find out about the process.
Here's a video guide on how to apply, all the information is also in text format on this page.
There are several stages to the application process, both for you as an applicant, and us as a grantmaker. In this section, we will outline exactly what you can expect, the steps you need to take, and what happens behind the scenes.
For applicants with accessibility needs, we might deviate from the process outlined below to remove barriers to application. Contact us to find out more.
The journey of a grant with Cheshire Community Foundation
The first thing you should do with any application is read all of our relevant guidance online. You should:
- Check that your organisation meets our minimum standards.
- Make sure the work you are looking to fund falls in line with our grant policies.
- Read our information about what makes a good application.
- Read the relevant information for the programme you are applying for, including the programme brief and application form (so you know what to expect from the questions). All information about our open grant programs can be found on our grants page.
There’s a lot of information about our grants on our website. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, get in touch with us on 01606 330607 or at grants@cheshirecommunityfoundation.org.uk. We’ll be happy to help answer any questions you have.
Some of our programmes require you to submit an ‘Expression of Interest’ before you apply. These are brief forms where you fill in a small amount of information about the work you want us to fund. We use these to double check that you and your work fits the programme, and it’s got a reasonable chance of being successful. We do this to save you time so that you don’t need to fill in a full application if this isn’t the right programme for you. Expression of Interest forms are designed to be short, and give us a really broad idea of what you’re looking for. If your Expression of Interest is successful, we’ll invite you to submit a full application. This step only applies to some programmes.
Application forms tell us exactly what you’re applying for. The questions on each form are different for each programme, depending on what we want to know. We will never ask you for information if we don’t need it. To remove barriers to access, this might take a different form e.g. video. We will also put PDF versions of our forms on each grant programme page, so you can see the questions you are going to be asked in advance.
As part of the application process, after you have submitted your application form, you may receive a call or e-mail from one of our Assessors. These assessors are grantmaking experts who will ask you for any extra details we want to know that weren’t covered in the form. Assessors want to hear the best bits of your project, and aren’t trying to catch you out or test you.
Often, Assessors will be a member of Cheshire Community Foundation staff, but we also use Freelance Assessors, so they may get in touch using an e-mail address or phone number that doesn’t belong to us. If you want to double check who you are talking to, just get in touch with us using the details above, and we’ll be happy to confirm.
If you are successful, you will have to sign a Grant Acceptance form before you receive your grant from us. By signing this form, you agree to obey our grant Terms and Conditions. You can read these in full here. These conditions outline:
- How you should use the grant
- How your organisation should behave/act when in receipt of our funding
- And what will happen if you don’t stick to these rules.
It’s normal for us to put some extra conditions on your grant, as well as your Grant Acceptance Form. We do this when there’s something we want to check or put in place before we give you the money. We usually expect you to do this within two weeks of receiving our award letter. These could be one of many things, however common conditions include:
- Completing your End of Grant Monitoring from a previous grant.
- Small changes to policies (e.g. Adding contact details of the Designated Safeguarding Lead to your Safeguarding Policy).
- Confirming match funding is in place.
- Confirming partners are on board with the project.
- Quotes or invoices from suppliers.
- A revised budget.
We aim to pay grants within three weeks of received all required documentation from the successful applicant.
Our different programmes have different reporting and promotion requirements. However, we’re really proud to be supporting your work, so please do shout about it! When it comes to promoting your project, please remember to state that it’s been supported by Cheshire Community Foundation. On social media, you’ll find us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram all as Cheshire Community Foundation so do tag us in – we’ll be sure to like and share!
Cheshire and Warrington’s sector infrastructure organisations are also great gateways to promoting and sharing your project or opportunities with others. Warrington Voluntary Action, Cheshire East CVS and Cheshire West Voluntary Action are the places to start.
Our team can provide helpful hints on PR and a press release template, so you will have the tools to spread the word and announce your grant. These differ for different programmes so are shared directly with grantees.
Please always use our correct logo here and contact us if you need different formats.
All grantees awarded by Cheshire Community Foundation must submit end of grant Monitoring Forms. These forms tell us how you spent the money and what you achieved through the course of your funded work. They also help us understand any challenges you faced, and what learning can be taken from your work. We use these in several ways:
- To confirm that the grant was spent in the agreed way.
- To understand the impact our grants make and the number of lives we change.
- To become a better funder by learning from your project.
- To tell stories about the amazing work we fund, and use these to raise more money for grants.
Good monitoring takes place throughout your whole project, not just at the end. That’s why we will always send you the form at the start of your project, so you will know what we will ask you at the end.
Behind the Scenes
Every application goes through our Due Diligence process. During this we check different elements of your application and your organisation to:
- Check you meet our minimum requirements on finances, governance, and safeguarding.
- How well the application fits the programme aims and eligibility criteria.
- Assess any risks which your work might have, and if these can be mitigated.
Each application is then assessed by one of our staff, or an external freelance assessor. During this stage, we may phone or e-mail you to ask for additional information relating to your application. During the assessment, we take all the information we have, and score your project in categories such as:
- How well your work has identified and meets the needs of the community with which you want to work
- How robust and realistic your delivery plans are
- How well it fits the programme aims and priorities
- Your ability and plans to measure and evidence the impact you make
- Whether or not the grant is good value for money and financially well-planned.
- Your ability to keep children, young people, and/or vulnerable adults safe throughout your work, as appropriate.
This score, alongside a recommendation of whether or not to fund your application, is then passed on to our grantmaking panel.
Each application is presented to a grant panel to make a decision on whether they are ‘fundable’ or ‘not-fundable’, using all the information we have gathered. These panels are made up of Cheshire Community Foundation staff, sector experts, community leaders, and donors. We also have a commitment to making sure we include as many people as possible with lived experience of the challenges faced by communities we fund.
Sometimes, our grant programmes have a pot of money to spend; often, however, we need to go look for funds to give out once we know what we want to fund. When we do this, our Fund Development team take all the fundable projects to our generous donors and match them based on the themes or ‘pillars’ they address. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to secure money for every grant that we wish to award.
Finally, when we have a list of fundable projects and have secured the money to give them, the decisions must be ratified or ‘agreed’ by our trustees. Once our trustees have signed these off, we are free to get in touch with applicants to give them the results of their applications.
When your grant is complete and you have submitted your monitoring reports, we take all the learning and insight from your work and apply it to future grantmaking. From your reporting, we get a deeper understanding of the challenges facing our communities. We use this to shape our grantmaking and make sure that we achieve the strongest outcomes in the future. We also use the stories you submit to create our impact reports, which we give to our donors. This lets us shout about the amazing work which our funded organisations do, and helps us raise more money for grants in the future.
The success rate of eligible applications for 2025 is 52%. Some programmes are more competitive than others. Our aim is to continually improve the clarity of guidance to ensure ineligible applications are extremely rare.
