Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations Fund in United Kingdom

Your organisation will work directly with Deaf and Disabled people over the long term to support them to have more choice and control over their lives, access their rights and entitlements, and challenge the barriers they face.

Funding Information

• Organisations can apply for a three-year unrestricted grant of £75,000.
• This year, they will make 41 grants across England and Wales.

Eligibility Criteria

• Your charity, charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) or community interest companies (CIC) must meet the relevant criteria below to be eligible to apply for a grant from us:
  • Registered Charities and CIOs must:
    • Be registered as a charity or a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) with the Charity Commission if you are registered in England and Wales or the Index for Charities if registered in the Isle of Man. They will ask for your charity registration number at the start of your application.
    • Have at least one set of annual accounts showing as ‘received’ on the Charity Commission website, covering a twelve-month operating period. If you are based in the Isle of Man, they will ask you to submit your latest set of accounts.
    • Have a Board of at least three trustees in place who are not related to other Board members and have their names appearing on your Charity Commission records.
  • Community Interest Companies must:
    • Be Limited by Guarantee or Limited by Shares under Schedule 2 and be registered with Companies House. They will review your Articles of Association that show you have an asset lock in place and that you have named the organisation that will receive the company’s assets on dissolution. If there is no named organisation, this will need to be in place before your application can progress to full assessment.
    • Have at least one set of annual accounts filed with Companies House that show a track record of frontline delivery. You must also have filed your CIC Annual Report CIC34 for the last year. They will ask you to submit your profit and loss account for your latest financial year.
    • Have at least three unrelated Directors sitting on your Board who are registered with Companies House.
    • No Director should hold more than 50% of the company’s voting rights or have the sole right to remove other Directors.
  • All organisations must:
    • Be based and working in England, Wales or the Isle of Man. Most of your organisation’s time and money is spent on activities in England, Wales and/or the Isle of Man helping people living in these areas.
    • Have an annual income of between £25,000 and £500,000 in the last set of published accounts. This is total income and, in the case of consolidated accounts, should cover all entities within those accounts.
    • Have a bank account in the name of the organisation with unrelated signatories. If the application is successful, the grant must be paid into this account.
    • The majority of people in positions of power (including directors/trustees, the CEO and senior managers) must not be related nor live at the same address. Where there are related parties, they will consider the relationship, conflicts of interest and loyalty, the balance of power of the related directors/trustees, and how this is managed.
    • Have a track record of delivering support, activity or services, for at least one year, to people aged 18 and over. You must currently be delivering these services. If your organisation has recently merged, then this must apply to at least one organisation pre-merger.
    • Not include religious activity as a part of the services delivered unless the charity has been established to support people specifically of that faith.
    • If you provide therapy/counselling as part of your services, the individuals providing the therapy/counselling must hold registration with one of the Professional Standards Authority accredited registers for counselling and psychotherapy and your charity must have a process in place for checking their registration on a regular basis.
    • Have a safeguarding policy in place. They will explore what safeguarding means to your organisation, how it fits with your mission and values, and your approach to safeguarding across your organisation.
    • Have a Designated Safeguarding Lead/ Officer (DSL/O). This person will be accountable for your safeguarding practice and will be appropriately trained. In most cases they expect the DSL/O to have undertaken “Designated Safeguarding Lead training” This may be called as such or may be called Level 3 training in England or Level C training in Wales.
    • Hold Public Liability Insurance.
    • Be an independent organisation. They will look at any formal associations you have with other organisations, parent bodies, or group structures. They will check that the Board or Directors of the applicant organisation has full control over its work and any conflicts of interest.
    • If you have a live grant with Lloyds Bank Foundation, it must end before 31 December 2026.
  • You must meet these programme criteria to be considered for funding.
    • Your organisation will be led by and working for Deaf and Disabled people. By this, they mean that a majority (at least 51%) of your Directors/Trustees and half (at least 50%) of staff, at all levels of your organisation, self-identify as Deaf and/or Disabled people. They will prioritise funding organisations where at least 75% of your Directors/Trustees and 50% of staff self-identify as Deaf and/or Disabled people.
    • The support, activities or services you deliver must be person centred and supporting people over the long term. Your charity will support Deaf and Disabled people over the longer term to support them to have more choice and control over their lives, access their rights and entitlements and challenge the barriers they face. Your organisation may have a main focus, such as providing advice and advocacy, reducing isolation or delivering employability support, but you will tailor what you do to meet the needs of the individual. For the needs of people that you can’t meet directly, you will have trusted relationships in place with other organisations or agencies to which you refer people.

Ineligibility Criteria

• They do not provide funding for the following organisations:
  • Organisations that are not charities or Community Interest Companies registered in England and Wales.
  • Infrastructure or ‘umbrella’ organisations.
  • Organisations whose primary purpose is to give funds to individuals or other organisations. This means organisations use more than 50% of their annual expenditure as grants.
  • Organisations working predominantly outside England and Wales.
  • Organisations that require people to take part in a religious activity as part of the support provided.
  • Hospitals, health authorities, or hospices.
  • Rescue services.
  • Schools, colleges, or universities.

For more information, visit Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales.