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Community Lounge Grants

Stoke-on-Trent City Council currently supports 18 Community Lounges across the city, to deliver flexible, community‑focused services shaped by local needs. These lounges function as key centres for engagement, wellbeing, and support, reducing isolation and enhancing quality of life. They offer accessible, inclusive spaces where residents can connect, seek assistance, and participate in activities that promote health and independence.

This Fund supports Stoke-on-Trent organisations to deliver projects that enhance the services provided by community lounges, enable more community spaces to become Community Lounges, strengthen the impact of community‑based support, widen the range of local services available, and encourage intergenerational connections within neighbourhoods.

Priorities of the Fund

This programme aims to expand both the number of Community Lounges, and the services that they provide which align with the Council’s priorities to:

  • Enhance community – based support
  • Broaden service access
  • Promote intergenerational approaches
  • Increase diversity and inclusion
  • Strengthen early intervention

The programme is looking for projects which supports these priorities. Groups might consider projects such as:

  • Strengthening and expanding services within the existing Community Lounge network
  • Establishing new lounges, including digitally enabled spaces
  • Supporting out-of-hours community provision where beneficial
  • Enhancing intergenerational engagement, including collaboration with Family Hubs
  • Increasing inclusion and diversity to engage a wider more representative demographics of attendees
  • Developing a digital community / physical community aimed at Care Leavers

Projects need to be flexible and run during evenings and weekends so they are accessible to as many people as possible.

We are seeking innovative projects that introduce fresh ideas, new approaches, or creative solutions to strengthen community support.

The panel would welcome and prioritise applications with a focus on:
• Children and Families
• Young People — particularly where young people have actively shaped the project

Eligibilty

Who We Are Able to Support 

  • Constituted Voluntary groups
  • Constituted Community groups
  • Registered Charities
  • Social Enterprises

This programme will support local, grassroots voluntary and community organisations.  It will not support statutory agencies or national charities / organisations.

Organisations must have been established for longer than twelve months to apply.

Who We Are Not Able to Support 

This programme is not able to offer funding to:

  • Local Authorities
  • Parish and Town Councils
  • Schools
  • Statutory organisations
  • Groups that will benefit statutory organisations
  • National organisations with no local arm
  • Private businesses
  • Groups that have not been established for at least 12 months

Geographical Reach

Organisations should be based in or working in:

  • Stoke on Trent

Eligible Activities

  • Proportionate core costs
  • Equipment Costs
  • Small items of equipment
  • Training Costs
  • Revenue Costs
  • Project Costs
  • Event Costs

Ineligible Costs 

  • Funding towards religious projects or projects that promote religion. Projects delivered by faith-based organisations will be considered, as long as the services they provide are available to people or all faiths or no faith
  • Political campaigning activities specific to any one party, including participation in political demonstrations, support of a political party, or the issuing of material which supports or opposes a particular party or government
  • Statutory bodies or provision, including towards the provision of core statutory services or services that carry out a statutory responsibility
  • Retrospective funding, where the project has already occurred or for goods and services which have already been ordered or purchased prior to funding being approved

Application Process

Grants Available 

You can apply for a grant of up to £10,000

Project Duration

Organisations have 12 months to fully deliver the project

Monitoring Expectations

Organisations must agree to complete an End of Grant report demonstrating impact and showcasing their work

There may be various touchpoints throughout the delivery of the project

Organisations must submit case studies to demonstrate their impact – consent will be required

What to expect on the application form 

You may find the following information useful, so as you are prepared when completing the application form.

  • The application form will request details about your organisation and the designated lead contact for the project. Please ensure that the lead contact has the authority to sign contracts, as they will be financially responsible for managing the award.
  • Regarding the project, the application will then ask the following
    • What will you do during your project / activity?
    • What need or disadvantage are you trying to address? 
    • How will your project improve the lives of the people that engage with it? 
    • If you receive funding, what will happen to your project when funding runs out? Will you sustain it?
    • Have your beneficiaries been engaged with, in the design of the project or activity?
    • How does your proposed project meet the aims of the fund as set out in the criteria?
    • How will you measure the impact of your project or activity?
    • Have you managed similar projects before? What was the impact of your work?
  • You will be asked beneficiary data, including target numbers (please be realistic with this as we will expect monitoring to reflect support)
  • Finally, you will be asked to provide a full budget breakdown to show how you will spend the grant

Documents You Need to Send Us

The following documents must be provided with your application. If you fail to provide these documents, your application will not be considered. All documents should be submitted at the time of the application.

  • Governance document (Constitution, Memorandum and Articles of Association)
  • Accounts – either audited, independently examined or financial forecast
  • Bank Statement – must be no older than 3 months and needs to clearly show the bank account name (which matches the application), number and sort code
  • Safeguarding policy
  • Equality Policy
  • A copy of your insurance document
  • Quotes for capital items

Submission Dates

November 2026 panel – Applications received before 12th October 2026, will be seen at the November panel (5th November 2026).

How to Apply

To apply, please first check that your organisation meets our core eligibility criteria, which can be found here 

If you believe you are eligible, click on the “Apply Now” button below, which will take you to our funding portal

If you feel you’d benefit from some support with the online application, please give us a call. We can look at arranging a call or visit to guide you through it.

How to use our funding portal

  • You will be asked to register with your name and email address, if this is your first time on our portal, or sign in if you have visited the portal before
  • Once in the portal, click on “available Funding”
  • This will display a table with all of our available grants
  • Find this programme in the list and navigate to the far right hand column, where you will see the word “apply”
  • Click on the word “apply” and this will take you to the application form

If you need any support with your application, please contact us using our email address or by calling our team on 01785 339540

If you would like to see the criteria in PDF form, please click this link

Community-Lounges-criteria

Apply Now