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The Health and Social Care Volunteering Fund (HSCVF) national grant scheme is designed to support national level projects that are strategic and developmental in their approaches to volunteering in the health and social care sector. HSCVF aims to achieve impact at a strategic level with significant outcomes and impact.
All applicant organisations need to work collaboratively with statutory health and / or social care commissioners to test volunteer-led approaches to provision that complements existing statutory services.
Commissioners' involvement in the project design will be required as well as a statement of their support for the proposed project.
You can apply to our national grant programme if you are:
For a full listing of eligibility criteria please read the decide whether to apply section?
The application submission process is all online and accessible via www.volunteeringfund.com.
Before you can enter the application portal you must register your interest in the fund online (see website address above) between 16 November and 13 December 2010. As long as you meet the fund’s eligibility criteria (see Who can apply?) your registration will be accepted.
The two stage application process is as follows:
First stage applications: Application portal opens 1 December 2010 and closes at noon on 12 January 2011. Once your registration is approved you will receive a user name and password to access the application portal and complete your application.
Second stage applications for shortlisted applicants: Application portal opens 1 March and closes at noon on 5 April 2011. Applicants who have scored sufficiently highly at Stage 1, and have the best fit with the programme priorities will be invited to submit a Stage 2 application. Acceptance into stage 2 is not a guarantee of funding.
The HSCVF is a national grant scheme with a requirement to have national reach. Local/regional organisations are able to apply in partnership with other national/local/regional organisations to ensure the proposed project has the required national reach. Our definition of national reach is for projects to work across four or more English regions/ counties.
The registration portal is open between 16 November and 13 December 2010. No applications can be made prior registration. Please note that acceptance of your registration does not mean that you are likely to be funded.
No, each lead applicant will be only being allowed to submit a maximum of one proposal. However, you can be involved as a partner or sub-contractor in other projects.
The HSCVF is a national grant scheme with a requirement to have national reach. If your organisation does not have service delivery points in at least four regions geographically spread across England, you can apply to work in partnership with other organisations or agencies that have a shared interest in your proposed project and its specific objectives.
The lead applicant for your proposed project must be a voluntary, community or social enterprise organisation. There is no limit to the number of partners that can apply together, but the more partners involved, the more complex the management will become so we recommend no more than five partners in any one bid. Please note that there is a total 5% limit on HSCVF monies going to statutory or private sector organisations even where they are partners.
The National Grant Scheme is open to voluntary sector organizations working in England within at least four regions geographically spread across England.
If you deciding whether to apply you should read:
For an understanding of the context of the fund please read:
The Health and Social Care Volunteering Fund (HSCVF) programme priorities have been developed consciously so that funded projects can contribute positively towards:
The National Portfolio scheme has four funding themes. Applicants must apply under one theme only. An overview of the theme is given below.
The theme relates to the project not to your organisation. You should choose the theme that most closely fits your project.
The three principles of Big Society are:-
More information on the Big Society can be found on the Office for Civil Society website and from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations website.
The checklist is designed for applicants to check their basic eligibility for the National Grant Scheme. It should be used in conjunction with the programme guidance notes.
Any voluntary, community or social enterprise organisation wishing to run volunteering projects in the health or social care sector will be able to apply for funding. We will accept partnerships bids as long as the lead applicant is one of the above. Please note that this a 5% maximum limit of any funding going to private or statutory sector organisations, even where they are your partners.
The HSCVF funding is restricted to voluntary, community or social enterprise organisations registered in England.
The minimum Volunteering Fund grant available is £50,000 per annum.
The maximum Volunteering Fund grant available is £200,000 per annum.
Each organisations maximum funding limit will depend on its yearly income. The HSCF monies cannot make up more than 25% of an organisations yearly income. At registration you will receive guidance on the maximum amount you can apply for.
The maximum term that a grant can be awarded for is 3 years, but projects can be funded for shorter periods. The grant allocation is subject to annual parliamentary approval.
The successful national projects will receive anything between £50,000 minimum and £200,000 maximum year over a maximum funding period of 3 years. Each project will be assessed on its merits and will need to be based on realistic costs for activity, and the value for money provided in their proposed budgets. Projects that appear to be over costed may be asked to scale down or where undercosted may be asked to scale up.
The Volunteering Fund grant should not exceed 25% (¼) of your turnover in any one year based on your last set of published accounts as per the following examples:
If you apply for £200,000 in 2010/11 your turnover must be at least 4 x 200,000 = £800,000
If you apply for £80,000 in 2010/11 your turnover must be at least 4 x 80,000 = £320,000
If you apply for £50,000 in 2010/11 your turnover must be at least 4 x 50,000 = £200,000
Our aim in introducing the 25% rule was to encourage more long-term projects and reduce the risk of organisations not being able to deliver the project outcomes. Our experience has been that if one grant is a high percentage of an organisation’s income, they may find it difficult to cover core costs through full cost recovery. As a result, it could make the project proposal more risky. Over reliance on a grant can lead to lack of stability when the grant runs out, and we want to avoid this.
We are looking for projects that:
The projects with the best fit to the DH priorities will be funded, within the limits of the funding available in each year. The appraisal of bids will be carried out by experienced assessors, with appropriate knowledge of the health and social care sector. There will be a strict quality control procedure on project appraisal, overseen by Ecorys staff who have many years of experience of appraisal of bids from statutory and third sector development funds. Feedback will be available to unsuccessful applicants. The final decisions on which organizations are funded will rest with the DH, with recommendations from Ecorys. Funding decisions will be final and cannot be appealed.
All projects will have the option to take up the support offered through the grant scheme. This will include initial diagnostics, with a programme of development put in place from this initial diagnostic assessment. The package will include: support from a specialist in third sector development activity, action learning sets and accredited training. These will be provided by staff and volunteers from one of the highly experienced organizations within the partnership.
You do not have to pay for any of the activities offered in the Support Package (Organisation Diagnostic Tool; support consultancy; action learning sets, training, online forum); although it would be sensible to make financial provision for travel and subsistence for these events.
You can contact the Volunteering Fund team on 0845 172 8058 or by email on [email protected].
The decision on each bid is final and will not be reviewed unless the applicant agency has provided concrete evidence to the HSCVF managing body that their bid has been unfairly marked or that there is concrete evidence of an error on the part of the managing agency. In this instance the evidence will be reviewed and if considered necessary the bid will be remarked by a senior member of the company's management team who has no direct involvement in the management of HSCVF.
Remarking may not lead to funding being awarded however, and is no guarantee that the bid will reach the required threshold for funding. Each bidding round is highly competitive and the majority of bids received are not funded even where they have demonstrable strengths.
The marking process for this fund is rigorous and objective. Each bid is marked by an experienced bid assessor, who has no connection with either the Department of Health or the HSCVF management team. They declare their independence from the bidding project and its staff before they proceed with their assessment of each bid. Any bid that reaches above a certain threshold that is determined by the volume of bids received and their quality is then second checked by another experienced and independent assessor. The scores are then finally checked and moderated by the core HSCVF team to ensure marking has been consistent and fair and to ensure there is a balance of health and social care projects in the final list of projects recommended to the Department of Health for funding. The Department of Health considers the final list of recommended projects from this process and then funding is awarded.