We fund work in England and Wales that aims to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence – especially those aged between 10 and 14-years old.

Every programme and activity we fund, we’ll evaluate. We do this because we want to learn what works, for whom and why.

We will use this knowledge to scale up effective programmes, spread good practice and guide decision makers on which services or approaches are most likely to keep children and young people safe.

We offer three types of funding…

Themed rounds

If we want to change things, we’ll have to focus. That’s why much of our funding will be on a series of priority themes, one or two at any one time. How will we choose our themes? We’ll focus on areas where change is possible, where we can learn about what works and build a coalition with those who want to do things differently.

Place-based

We know that a lot of violent crime happens in very specific local areas. To make a difference, we need to work with the people and organisations who live and work there; they know their communities best. That’s why we’ll work closely with them through our Neighbourhood Fund. Together, we’ll build a better understanding about what’s happening locally and test out the approaches that’ll work best for the area.

We also know how important it is that agencies and services working with young people share information, data and power. So we’ll fund activity to help them work together. And we’ll do all we can to help Violence Reduction Units make sustainable, evidence-based change in their areas.

Targeted projects

Sometimes there will be promising projects that don’t fit into our priority themes or our place-based funding. We won’t ignore these. If we identify practices that are widely used but as yet untested, we will provide the resources to evaluate and learn from them.

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Our commitment to equality

We’ll make sure that our staff, our partnerships, our governance and our funding reaches and represents the children we are here to serve. We will work to make sure that our work reaches young people from all backgrounds. We will also strive to make sure that charities led by black, Asian and ethnic minority leaders access our funding and knowledge.

To make absolute sure of this, we will allocate £5 to 10 million over the next three years to fund black, Asian and minority-ethnic led charities that are working to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence.

We know that it’s just a start, and there’s more we will do. We’re committed to continuing to work with you to make sure our funds, the knowledge we build and our work for change all work towards a society where every child can thrive.