The Fore Announces its Latest Grantees and Upcoming Funding Round
December 15, 2020
We are delighted to announce the results of The Fore RAFT Transition Fund – 49 exceptional small charities and social enterprises have received over £700,000 in unrestricted grants. This funding will help grantees adapt their business models and become more sustainable in a post-coronavirus world.
The Fore RAFT Transition Fund was launched in July, offering grants of up to £15,000 to help put small non-profits on a stronger footing during the coronavirus crisis, with a particular emphasis on supporting micro-organisations and marginalised groups, which are frequently overlooked. The first grants were made in late October, with a subsequent round completed in late December.
The fund’s grantees are a vibrant and diverse group that bring together some of the most innovative ideas for tackling social issues. For example, Black Therapy Matters is a social activist start-up whose mission is to address the shortage of registered BAME counsellors and psychotherapists in the UK, by supporting BAME trainee therapists to complete their studies (despite making up 12% of the UK population, BAME people represent only 5% of therapists). Black Therapy Matters is using funding from The Fore to enable the founders to commit significantly more of their time to developing the young organisation, increasing its sustainability and facilitating growth.
Similarly, Love Music is an Edinburgh-based music charity running a community choir that has successfully made the challenging transition to remote-delivery, with 95% of participants reporting that the choir has improved their mental health and wellbeing. Love Music is using funding from The Fore to create new products and resources to share what it has learned with schools and other organisations, extending the reach of its model and generating additional income.
A full list of the Transition Fund grantees is available below – each represents a fascinating and dynamic project led by some of the UK’s foremost social entrepreneurs, using funding from The Fore to launch their organisations into an exciting new phase of development.
The Fore’s Next Funding Round
Registration for The Fore’s Spring 2021 Funding Round will open on Thursday January 7th at 10am. For this funding round, The Fore will return to offering unrestricted grants of up to £30,000 that can be spread over 1-3 years. The grants can be used for whatever grantees think will help transform their scale, sustainability, efficiency or impact. Any UK-registered charities, CICs or CBSs with annual incomes under £500,000 are welcome to apply. Once organisations have registered, they will have until Monday 25th January to complete their applications. More information about The Fore’s funding process can be found here.
The Fore is particularly keen to fund organisations run by, and/or working with, marginalised groups, and ‘micro’ organisations (with incomes under £100,000). The Fore Trust encourages applicants to make a carefully considered ‘ask’ commensurate with the scale of their organisation and impact of the grant, for instance smaller charities might wish to apply for less than the maximum available.
The Fore RAFT Transition Fund Grantees
Community 1st Herefordshire & Worcestershire
Havering Asian Social Welfare Association
The Veterans Farm Able Foundation