Speaker’s Art Fund ‘Democracy For All’ grant

How much funding is available?

You can apply for a grant of £500. You don’t need to have any other funding to support your project. We will prioritise projects where our funding will make a big difference to small projects. We are unlikely to fund projects where our funding makes up a small percentage of the overall project costs.

What can I get a Speaker’s Art fund ‘Democracy For All’ grant for?

Our grant can be used to fund art and education projects and activities taking place in constituencies which improve the understanding of democracy including but not limited to:

• Heritage projects, including working with local libraires and archives
• Filmmaking and film screening
• Digital art
• Literature and reading groups
• Cultural events and festivals
• creative writing
• faith based activities
• Supporting UK Parliament Week - https://www.ukparliamentweek.org/en/

Projects must have the UK Parliament/House of Commons at their heart. They should offer shared creative experiences to bring local communities together.

You can apply for project costs. These could be:

• coordination costs
• hiring space for exhibitions, meetings or classes
• marketing costs—printing and distribution
• training costs
• volunteer expenses
• travel costs
• staff costs
• hiring equipment
• running costs
• translators

What the grant won’t pay for?

• activities taking place outside of the constituency
• activities that have already taken place
• activities that will take place within six weeks of your application being submitted
• general overheads not related to the delivery of your project
• profit-making activities or projects
• fundraising activities or challenges
• activities which collect funds for other charities or people
• support for tuition fees or activity linked to an individual’s formal studies such as a degree or apprenticeship

Who can apply?

• formal or informal groups and organisations

Additionally

• you must be an individual or organisation living or working in the constituency for which you apply for funding
• you must have a UK bank account with two unrelated signatories or be able to nominate an organisation that can accept a grant on your behalf-you don’t have to be formally constituted or a registered charity

Who can’t apply?

There are some groups and people who are not eligible for funding. This includes:

• businesses and ‘for profit’ organisations
• local offices of larger regional or national organisations/charities
• people under the age of 18
• No political parties (The Speaker is neutral)

How can I apply?

You can apply for a grant using our downloadable application form. The form asks a few questions about you, your organisation, project and the people involved:

• you will need to be able to tell us about your regular or previous activities you have undertaken and provide information on your project, in no more than 500 words
• you will need to tell us how your approach will meet the Speaker’s Art Fund ‘Democracy For All’ grant priorities
• you must provide your UK bank account details (with two unrelated signatories if you’re an organisation) or nominate another organisation to accept funds on your behalf
• you’ll need to submit a letter of endorsement from your constituency MP. They are only able to provide one recommendation and support one project per constituency. 
• you will be responsible for all the financial and legal aspects of your project. This may include insurance, risk assessments, and having an up-to-date Safeguarding Policy if you are working with Children, young People and Vulnerable Adults.
• you should declare any potential conflicts if affiliated with parties with a declared interest in the area.

We aim to make swift decisions to get money where it is most needed quickly. To talk to someone about your application before you apply or if you require the application materials in a different format, please get in touch. Email saf@parliament.uk

When can I apply?

This Speaker’s Art Fund Grants round will be open for applications from 18th October 2023 until 12 January 2024. However, please allow a minimum of six weeks between submitting your application and the start date of your project start date to allow for processing.

Successful projects must be delivered by end of March 2024.

How will the Speaker’s Art Fund decide which projects to fund?

We will consider several factors, these include:

• The connection to the Speaker’s Art Fund priorities.

How well your project meets one or more of the the Speaker’s Art Fund priorities described at the beginning of this guidance.

• Your creative idea.

How well it relates to art, UK Parliament and the House of Commons within your constituency.

• Who you are reaching and how you will reach them.

We will assess how effective your plans are at reaching participants and/or audiences. We want to fund activity with a diverse range of communities. Such as your plans to advertise your event or make it available to specific groups who don’t normally engage with the House of Commons/UK Parliament. That means we may prioritise applications that work on community projects we’ve not previously funded.

• How you will manage the project

If you have run projects before, we will look at your experience of running similar projects. We will consider how well planned the activity and budgets are.

• The amount of public funding you’ve or a project or an initiative has received before.

We want to reach individuals and groups that don’t usually receive public funding. We may, at times, prioritise good applications from individuals and groups that have received less public funding. If you are uncertain about this please do get in touch and we can advise you what this means.

• The impact

We will prioritise projects where our funding will make a big difference to small projects. We are unlikely to fund projects where our funding makes up a small percentage of the overall project costs.

• Due diligence checks.

We will carry out what we call ‘due diligence’ checks. These are tests to check that you are who you say you are and that you are active with in your local community. We will use the information given in the application form to do these checks. Please make sure your information is correct and you have declared any potential conflicts of interest, otherwise it could delay your application or payment.

• Who decides

The Board of Trustees will decide who gets a grant. The board is made up of the Speaker, the Clerk of the House, the Finance Director and the Speaker’s Chief of Staff.

What will I need to do if my application is successful?

We’ll send you a Speaker’s Art Fund pack with the full terms and conditions of your grant. You will need to accept this offer within six weeks before we can release your grant to you. You must use the Speaker’s Art Fund logo on all your publicity materials, if you produce them, and reports. We’ll send you the logos, details of how and will need to review materials produced before sign-off. You must publicly acknowledge the Speaker’s Art Fund whenever you talk about the project. The Speaker’s Art Fund should be included as a separate line in your audited accounts (if you produce them). We may ask you for further information before we release any funds to you. This might include:

• copies of insurance documents
• copies of Safeguarding Policies for Children, Young People and Vulnerable Adults
• licenses and risk assessments

You must use your grant for the project/activities set out in your application. If you need to make changes to your project, you must contact us and get our approval first. If you do not, you may have to give up the grant and repay any money already paid out to you. You must tell us of any changes to you/your organisation that would affect your ability to complete your project.

At the end of your project, you will need to tell us what happened during your project by filling out a final activity report form. To do this, you’ll need to monitor:

• your income and expenditure
• your outputs (number of workshops, participants, volunteers, etc.)
• information on your participants, audiences, volunteers, etc. I

If you don’t complete a final activity report form You will be asked to repay the money.

We’d like you to tell us about what happened during your project, share photos, connect and tag us in social media. For example, was it a success, what worked well and what worked less well, what did you achieve, will you continue the project? We’d also like your feedback on your experience working with the Speaker’s Art Fund throughout the grants scheme process. For some projects, we’ll arrange to talk face-to-face with the people involved in the project. This will allow us to capture the stories of what the Speaker’s Art Fund small grant scheme has achieved.

We’d also like to know if you would be happy to be part of a Speaker’s Art Fund film promoting the grant scheme. We will ask you in the application form if you’re happy for us to contact you about this. We will visit as many projects as possible to see our funding in action. Please keep us informed of any changes to dates and/or venues.

What happens if my application is not successful?

We’re expecting high demand for the Speaker’s Art Fund grants. As a result, we won’t be able to support all projects that apply for funding. If your application doesn’t succeed, we’ll email you to let you know and give you a brief explanation as to why. You can get in touch if you want to talk through your application and get more detailed feedback. You can resubmit your amended application for the same project, allowing for at least six weeks before your planned start date. You can send an application for a different project if you think it might better meet our funding priorities but can only submit one application for processing at a time.

Can I talk to someone about my application before I apply?

Of course. You can contact us on:

Email saf@parliament.uk