Grant closed
The Winter Wishes fund has now closed – please email grants@sng.org.uk if you have any questions.
Supporting our Communities
Introducing our Winter Wishes Fund, providing grants of up to £1,000 to support our communities over the festive period.
For most, the Christmas period is a time of celebration, but for some it can be a difficult period with additional financial pressures and deepened feelings of social isolation and loneliness.
Our Winter Wishes Fund will support not-for-profit groups and organisations to deliver projects that help our communities and customers over the festive period.
We will be awarding grants from £300 up to £1,000 for initiatives and projects that actively support the communities we work in. The fund is to support projects that provide vital support to those most vulnerable in our communities, helping to navigate this time of year. Funding can be used in a variety of ways, from providing the local community with a warm nourishing meal, gifting toys and hampers to families in need and providing shelter to people without a safe place to call home at Christmas.
Examples of projects we have funded in the past include:
- Hot meal distribution for socially isolated older people
- Christmas hampers to families in need
- Toy support for children suffering from homelessness or domestic abuse
- Clothes collection/distribution for the homeless
- Local Christmas events designed and run by community members
Where do we work?
We are a leading housing association, striving to provide quality, affordable homes and communities that people love for generations. We have deep roots in the south of England, with over 82,000 homes focused in a core area covering Berkshire, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, London, Oxfordshire, the Isle of Wight, the West of England and Wiltshire.
We will prioritise projects that are clearly working with SNG communities and can demonstrate that our customers will benefit from the project activities.
The map below shows where the homes we manage are located. Please get in touch if you need an accessible version of this information.
If you have a project but are unsure about whether it would be eligible for this fund, please email community.investment@sng.org.uk.
To apply for this fund, you must be a local not-for-profit group, community organisation, or registered charity and you must be able to demonstrate how your project will benefit SNG customers.
Please note, we cannot support individuals, private businesses or organisations set up as trusts. We will also not be able to support national appeals, activities which are of a wholly and exclusively political nature, or retrospective funding of activities, projects or equipment. Examples of projects we cannot support with this fund include commercial events and Christmas parties/events that are not run by community members or specifically targeted at supporting those most in need.
To apply for funding, you will need to register your project on the ActionFunder website. ActionFunder is a digital fundraising platform that connects funding bodies with non-profits with the goal of supporting thriving local communities.
By adding your project to ActionFunder, you will have the potential to match with multiple different funding pots, not just our Winter Wishes Fund.
Apply for the Winter Wishes Fund
When registering your project, you will be asked for some key information about your project. You will first need to provide your project pitch. This where you will identify why your project is needed and what you intend to deliver. You have the option to provide this information in written form or submit a video pitch describing your project idea, why it is needed and why you are best placed to deliver.
The second section of the application is the delivery plan, where you provide more detailed information about how much your project will cost and what the impact of your activities will be. You will need to provide a budget breakdown, as well as information about who will benefit from project and how. Try to link this back to your problem statement where possible.
If you have any questions about the application process, please email us at community.investment@sng.org.uk or for technical assistance, email hello@actionfunder.org.
The deadline for applications is midnight on Wednesday 13 November to ensure that we can issue funds before December, so please do not hesitate in submitting your application.
Should we offer you funding, you will have the opportunity to accept or reject the grant via the ActionFunder platform. Any funding offer will be conditional to passing ActionFunder’s due diligence checks. Funding will need to be spent by the end of February 2025.
You will be required to complete a short reporting form at the end of your project including information about your beneficiaries and key project outcomes. At the point of accepting your funding offer, you will be able to access these reporting forms via the ActionFunder platform.
By uploading your data to ActionFunder, you consent to the platform’s terms and conditions which allows for the material you upload to be used for marketing and promotional purposes by both SNG and ActionFunder. Please read ActionFunder’s terms of use for more information.