Questions about the grant round

Is the A supportive home grant round right for our organisation and should we apply? 

We’ve published an update to our 2021 prospectus here. It outlines the kinds of projects we’re looking to fund and the types of evaluations we want to commission.  

We recognise the time and effort that goes into completing funding applications, so strongly recommend that, when we publish more information, you check you meet all the criteria before applying.  

What support is there be to help me make an application?  

To help organisations apply for funding from the Youth Endowment Fund, we’ve published full application guidance. This includes: 

• Question-by-question guidance for the application form. 
• Some examples of how to respond to questions applicants in our previous grant rounds tended to struggle with the most.  
• Details of how our application process will work and how we’ll work with you at an early stage to co-design the evaluation for your project. 

We’re also hosting a series of online workshops for organisations interested in applying. At each session, we’ll run through the application form in detail, explaining what we’re looking for in response to each question and giving you more detail about how we’ll make our assessments.  

To sign up to one of our grant round workshops, go to our grant round webpage here. 

How much money is a typical grant worth? And is there an upper limit on the grants?  

In this round, we’re looking to spend between £6 million to £10 million on funding five to ten projects. The amount we award to each project will depend on the type of programme that’s being delivered and the kind of evaluation we need to run to find out if it works. There is no cap on the amount we’ll spend.   

We’re expecting to make some quite large grants. That’s because, in our themed grant rounds, we’ll prioritise projects that are:  

• already delivering their programme to young people  
• ready for robust evaluation 

How much flexibility is there for the age criteria (6-18 years old) for A supportive home grant round projects?   

We recognise that some projects will work with young people beyond the age of 18 and some might work with children younger than 6. We expect the large majority of our funding to be used to support children within the specified age range.  

Are you allowed to apply as a partnership?

Yes, we welcome applications from partnerships. But please remember that you should only submit one application per proposal (this should come from your designated lead partner organisation).  

Are you allowed to make more than one application, for example as a sole organisation and then also as part of a partnership?  

Yes, there’s no limit on the number of applications you can be a part of.  

Please remember that, if you’re applying as a consortium or partnership, you should only submit one application per proposal (this should come from your designated lead partner organisation).  

How long will you fund projects for?  

We’ll fund programmes for up to three years. We want to make sure we’re funding projects long enough for there to be a rigorous evaluation, which will help us find out what works to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence.  

Will existing relationships with public services or statutory agencies strengthen my application to your A supportive home grant round?  

It will strongly strengthen your application. To be eligible your proposal must include taking referrals from public services or statutory agencies. One of the ways we’ll assess your application is on your ability to deliver the plan you set out – evidence of an existing relationship with the agency you want to work with could help to support that.  

You can read more information on the scope of the grant round and our assessment criteria in here. 

If my application is successful, when will I receive funds?  

If you join us as a partner, we’ll make quarterly payments (subject to monitoring returns).  

What types of organisation can apply?  

Our rounds are open to all organisations – in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Our only requirement is that your organisation is a formally registered legal entity. 

What will you look for in applications?  

We’ll prioritise applications from projects that are already delivering, are supported by some kind of evidence that they work and are ready for robust evaluation. This will improve our knowledge and understanding of what works to prevent children becoming involved in violence and help ensure every child gets the best possible support. 

These requirements do mean that these grant rounds won’t be quite right for every organisation. But we are working on other ways to get involved in our work. For further details, please see our prospectus update. 

Is there any priority given to organisations that can match fund their project?  

There aren’t any expectations for match funding for applications to themed grant rounds.  

That’s more of a requirement for targeted projects, our fund for projects that: 

• don’t fit into our priority themes or place-based funding 
• are widely used, have potential or are untested.  

At the moment, our targeted projects funding is paused. Keep an eye on our opportunities webpage here to find out when we’ll reopen for applications. 

Other themed grant rounds

When will grant rounds for your other themes open? 

In early 2022, we’ll open our third themed grant round. We think we’ll focus on school-based projects that look to reduce violence by improving school attendance.  

We’ll publish more information about the scope of the round next year.  

You can read more about our other funds in our prospectus. 

Our evaluations

What does the evaluation mean?  

We’ll evaluate every project we fund. This means that – along with funding to deliver your activities – we’ll commission an independent research organisation to measure your programme’s impact. We do this because we want to understand what interventions work to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence, for whom and why. 

If you’re applying for funding, you don’t need to worry about factoring in the evaluation costs into your bid. We’ll look after commissioning the evaluation and matching you with the right research partner. As evaluations are such an important part of our work, we want to get it right. That’s why if your application is shortlisted, we’ll ask you to work with us to co-design the evaluation for your project.  

If you’d like to learn more about our approach to evaluation, watch one of our Evaluation Managers, Amy, explain more in this video.  

How do you choose evaluation partners, and how are they matched with a project? 

Evaluators are appointed through a competitive process and are eligible to apply if they are part of our evaluator panel. In the first instance they will be invited to submit an expression of interest to lead on the evaluation of a specific project. If shortlisted, they will then be invited to submit full evaluation proposals.  

The successful candidates will be appointed based on a range of factors including the capability and relevant experience and knowledge of the project team, the quality of methodology and approach, and value for money. 

Why do you want to focus on randomised control trials? It seems unfair on young people who need help and may end up in a control group.   

Our mission is to find out what works and we think that randomised control groups are a good way to do this. Our job is to properly test whether programmes that are meant to help young people are actually working and not having no effect or even making things worse. Just as we benefit from robust trials in medicine, young people deserve the support that they receive to be properly evaluated.  

We believe that using randomised control trials are a critical way for us to make sure that children get the right services at the right time. By following two groups of children (one where children take part in a project and one where they don’t), we can truly understand whether the programme works. It’s also important to say that being in a control group doesn’t mean denying children support that would otherwise be available to them. As we don’t know whether the programme being tested is better, worse or the same as these ‘usual services’, we’re not denying benefits to young people in the control group.  

In our later years, we plan to use our funding to scale-up activities that these rigorous evaluations have shown to be effective. Find out more by reading our strategy. And if you’d like to learn more about our approach to evaluation, watch one of our Evaluation Managers, Amy, explain more in this video.