Sandwell Financial Services Hub
Money Champions Scheme
Round 1 – 2014-15
Background
Sandwell Financial Services Hub (SFSH) is a free service set up to help social housing Social Housing Tenants improve their money management skills. Funded by the Big Lottery Fund, SFSH supports Social Housing Tenants to open a bank account, save, find furniture, find the best deals for mobile phone tariffs, buy white goods, switch energy providers, find home and car insurance deals, support to access employment and skills and other types of support and signposting.
Money Champions Scheme
The Money Champions Scheme (MCS) aims to help Social Housing Social Housing Tenants living in Sandwell manage their money better.
We are looking to fund activities that:
· Clearly engage Social Housing Tenants to undertake money management activity
· Clearly raise awareness of financial capability such as campaigns, formal and informal events.
Outcomes:
All activity must support or lead to the following outcomes:
o Social Housing Tenants feeling less financially excluded through improved access to appropriate bank accounts, credit services, insurances or savings opportunities.
o Social Housing Tenants who feel more confident to manage their money or to access mainstream financial services.
o Social Housing Tenants who have attended financial management skills training
o Social Housing Tenants who have attended financial accredited training opportunities.
We intend to make grants available of amounts as per those identified below. Any organisation or group is welcome to apply for a grant in each category, although only one grant per successful organisation will be made. Grants in the Gold category will be expected to show the sustainability of the activity to be funded.
Gold up to £5,000 award
Silver up to £1,000 awards
Bronze up to £300 awards
Examples of Gold – A project that can demonstrate it will lead to long term financial confidence sustainability
Examples of Silver – A project that could show or support longer term sustainability
Examples of Bronze – a group of parents (that must include some social housing tenants) meeting a local children’s centre to do money management activities.
Who can apply?
· Any voluntary or community organisation, group, social enterprise, school or Children’s Centre operating in Sandwell.
· The group must have it’s own bank account with at least two people who are unrelated that can make deposits and withdrawals from the account and have at least 3 members on its management committee or board.
· We will accept applications from informal groups that are hosted by established organisations, for example, parent’s groups hosted by a school or children’s centre.
· We will accept applications from partnerships, however, one organisation must be identified as the lead organisation.
The ‘host’ or ‘lead’ organisation must have a bank account with 2 unrelated signatories for cheques and transactions.
We will not fund Financial Capability (FC) Worker core post/time, however we may fund work or time where additionality can be clearly demonstrated, i.e.; an FC Worker running additional money management activities outside of their normal working hours (Evidence may be required).
Timescales
· All funding applications should be received by 30 September 2014.
· Successful applicants will be informed within 7 days of the closing date for applications.
· We envisage most funded activity to should be completed by 28 February 2015.
Submitting your application
You can submit your application by either emailing it to . or by post to arrive by 6pm on the closing date to Janice Freeman-Phillips, Sandwell Financial Services Hub, 134 High Street, Blackheath, West Midlands, B65 0EA.
Scoring criteria for applications
Funding applications will be scored on:
a) How well they will deliver against the outcomes above
b) How many people they seek to involve and seek to engage with.
c) Any innovative and ‘different’ approaches will also be scored more highly.
d) How they intend to capture the data required
e) Evidence of linkages with other groups and organisations.
Monitoring
A monitoring visit will be undertaken by a member of Sandwell Financial Services Hub as arranged with the project to see the project or activities in action and/or evidence of the activities taking place.
Successful organisations will be asked to inform Sandwell Financial Services Hub of any events or activities taking place at least 2 weeks before they take place.
PR and publicity
Sandwell Financial Services Hub are keen to support the activity funded through their donation with volunteering opportunities where possible. In addition, each supported organisation would be expected to engage with any PR or publicity to promote the involvement of the Big Lottery Fund and Sandwell Financial Services Hub as well as to promote their own organisation. This may include press, TV, radio, as well as articles on websites and social media.
Other sources of funding
This application is based closely on the Awards for All small grants application which seeks to support similar grassroots community-led projects www.awardsforall.org.uk
A good source of funding information can be also found by contact Sandwell Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO).
For more information or to request an electronic copy of this application, please contact Janice Freeman-Phillips on 0121 561 7935 or
2 | SFSH Money Champions Scheme JF-P September 2014