City & Guilds Foundation

City & Guilds Foundation is a charity registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (charity number 312832).

The City & Guilds Foundation's stated purpose is to help people and organisations get easy access to the right skills so they can grow and thrive. It focuses its funding on people who face barriers to work, helping them develop skills and find meaningful, sustainable employment. It launched its first Local Community Skills Fund, recognising the impact that locally led charitable work has in addressing specific skills gaps. Alongside this, it runs funding streams for frontline charities supporting people with convictions and displaced people, and a longstanding bursary scheme. Grants of up to £10,000 were awarded to 20 organisations across the UK.

Priority Areas

The City & Guilds Foundation focuses its funding on people who face barriers to work, helping them develop skills and find meaningful, sustainable employment. It provides grants and wider support to charities that deliver innovative, practical skills and employment opportunities, and also works with social enterprises and training providers. Its strategic social investments support displaced people, former offenders and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds; its youth work backs organisations helping vulnerable young people at risk of falling out of education, training or employment. Through the Local Community Skills Fund it supports locally led initiatives that address local skills gaps and limited access to training, including community-led projects that might not qualify for traditional funding. It values practical, innovative approaches and collaborative projects that can have wider impact.

Themes

• Displaced people
• Former offenders
• Lower socio-economic groups
• Vulnerable young people
• Community-led skills projects

Geographic Focus

The UK.

For the Local Community Skills Fund, eligible organisations submit an Expression of Interest; a panel reviews it, and successful applicants are invited to develop a detailed submission.

Deadlines: Applications to the Local Community Skills Fund open annually in spring.

Who can apply:

• Local Community Skills Fund
  • Registered charities with a voluntary income of less that £1m. If your organisation had income of over £1m last year, we will ask for a matching contribution that will be tailored to your size
  • Registered Social Enterprises, with clearly defined asset locks, with an income of less than £1m
  • Individuals and community groups, but only instances where they have a supporting organisation that is willing to act as the recipient of funds and meets one of the criteria above (for example a local college, Scout Group, charity etc.)

What to send:

• Local Community Skills Fund
  • Complete an initial Expression of Interest, including details of the nature and scale of your organisation, any existing relationship with the City & Guilds of London Institute and a broad sketch of your proposed programme.
  • A detailed submission requesting granular detail about the proposed project, the schedule of work, detailed budget and timeline.
• Bursary programme: Complete a registration form; eligible applicants are then sent the online application form.

Applying again: Local Community Skills Fund: Successful applicants will be able to apply for a new project no sooner than twelve months after receiving funding. We will not provide funding for the same project more than once unless it has changed or there is a compelling need. Please make your reasoning clear on the application form.

What the charity says:

• Projects should be achievable, deliverable within the grant period and capable of evaluation.
• Projects should have significant potential impact on support for vulnerable young people and generate useful learning.
• Projects should evidence collaboration between schools, further education, charities, public agencies, local government or employers.
• Projects should be scalable, with a potential route to scale identified.
• Projects should address a clear evidenced need, ideally supported by consensus, academic research or young people's lived experience.
• The Foundation or its partner will contact funded organisations about impact reporting.