Fun and Friendship Grant Programme

Fun and Friendship
Fun and Friendship is a new grant programme from BBC Children in Need
which is specifically targeted towards organisations working with disabled young people between 12 and 18 years. It is a three year programme and is additional to their other grant programmes.

The purpose of the grant programme is to help projects to create and enhance
opportunities for disabled young people to meet friends and have a good time, as
independently as possible, as young people of that age like to do. Disabled young people face additional constraints and barriers when seeking to establish independent social networks and they want to fund projects that empower and support them to socialise and make friends.

The Fun and Friendship programme is a £3 million grant programme working with projects that take place over three years, and it expects to make a maximum of 12 grants of up to £300,000 each across the UK.

The Fun and Friendship programme invites applications from projects that can demonstrate the participation and leadership of disabled young people in their work. They are looking for projects which have the ability to generate and share learning from their work to inform wider practice and policy as appropriate, and which can work individually and with each other to identify the barriers faced by disabled young people and promote new and effective responses.

A willingness to engage with the other projects within the programme will be
important – as they plan to hold regular seminars and project exchanges for the organisations in order to enable shared learning across the projects. The successful projects will be involved in BBC Children in Need events on occasion and in working with others in the field of disability.

Although there may be some capacity development for projects in the course of the
programme, organisations will be expected to have a level of infrastructure and support capable of running the proposed activities from the start of the funding period.

Who can apply to the Fun and Friendship programme?
Applications are welcomed from organisations that:

• are working with disabled young people aged 12-18
• are based in and operate within the UK (including Channel Islands and Isle of Man)
• have a constitution/ governing document that allows it to carry out the work proposed in the application
• have up to date audited accounts
• have a written child protection policy and take all appropriate steps to ensure the safety of children and young people
• are not for profit

What work will the Fun and Friendship programme support?
This programme will focus not on perceived limitations, but on validating and supporting meaningful participation of disabled young people in society. The projects involved in this programme will encourage confidence and create opportunities for friendships to flourish and fun to be had.

They are looking for new and effective ways to enable disabled young people to have a good time, and in doing so, to help identify traditional barriers and ways to overcome them. The primary focus of the projects will be social interaction, with disabled young people actively engaged in determining how that develops. The other focus of the projects will be a commitment to extracting and sharing what is learned.
Up to 12 grants will be awarded to projects across the UK, each valued up to £300,000 over a three year period.

Applicants are invited to submit projects which meet the following criteria:

• Work with disabled young people aged 12-18 years, post primary school
• Create ongoing opportunities for disabled young people to meet friends and have a good time
• Support disabled young people to “do what everyone else does” - applicants should lay out clearly how this will be facilitated and resourced
• Engage the young people in the development and direction of the project: successful applicants will have clearly demonstrated practice where young people themselves play an active role in running the project.
• Support and empower disabled young people to speak for themselves and to identify limiting practices and policies in their area: it will be important that projects describe how young people are currently supported and how they anticipate providing this aspect of the programme
• Learning is a core part of the programme design. As part of this, applicants will need to describe their plans for self evaluating their project in the Application Form and this is one of the criteria applications will be shortlisted against. It is also essential that applicants include the cost of self evaluating their project in their budget request to BBC Children in Need – to support this they have included a dedicated line in the Fun and Friendship Project Budget Form for costs associated with self evaluation.
• Projects will be expected to be active participants in the overall funding programme,
• liaising with the other successful projects across the UK and, where appropriate,
• engaging in exchanges and travelling to events designed to promote the programme
• objectives. Projects will also be required to take part in an independent project evaluation.

What work won’t the Fun and Friendship programme support?
Unless very clearly integral to the proposed social activities, they will not
normally support:

• specialist equipment
• holidays
• respite or family support
• therapies or treatment
• school based activities
• capital build
• transport schemes

They will not provide any funding for:

• trips or projects abroad
• medical treatment/research
• unspecified expenditure
• deficit funding or repayment of loans
• retrospective funding (projects taking place before the grant award date)
• projects unable to start within six months of the grant award date
• distribution to another/other organisation/s
• general appeals or endowment funds
• relief of statutory responsibility
• the promotion of religion
• projects for pregnancy testing or advice, information or counselling on pregnancy choices

Application process and timeline

1. They are now accepting applications for funding to the Fun and Friendshipprogramme. Applications can be made by submitting their online Application Form,available from the Fun and Friendship section of their website.
2. The deadline for submitting applications is midnight on Friday 31 July, 2009.
3. Approximately 50 projects will be shortlisted to proceed to a full assessment. These projects will be selected based on how well they meet the Fun and Friendship criteria.
4. All projects that have not been shortlisted will be notified by the end of September 2009.
5. Projects that have been shortlisted will be asked to submit additional information in mid September. (Note: they will be unable to progress any applications where thisinformation is not provided on time).
6. Shortlisted projects will be assessed between mid September and mid December2009.
7. Up to 12 projects will be selected for funding.
8. Notification letters will be sent by the end of February 2010.

Please contact them if you have any questions relating to what you are planning to do and the focus of your application. You can call BBC Children in Need on 020 8576 7788 from 9am to 5pm weekdays, making sure to mention your enquiry relates to Fun and Friendship, or send an email to pudsey@bbc.co.uk with Fun and Friendship in the subject line.

Please visit the website for full details including guidance and application form at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/grants/funandfriendship