Councillor Initiative Fund

The Councillor Initiative Fund enables their district councillors to make awards of funding to support a wide range of community projects and activities. As locally elected councillors, the fund allows them to get involved with local work and provide funding to help support community activity.

Each district councillor has £4,000 over a 4 year period to award to local community projects and activities. They use use a simple and easy awards process to enable decisions to be made quickly.

The maximum grant a councillor can award per project is £1,000. There is no minimum grant amount.

A project can be supported by multiple councillors at the same time with each being able to award up to £1,000.

They can fund up to 100% of project costs however, securing match funding will be viewed favourably in the review process.

They expect that most grants awarded will be between £100 to £500.

Organisations can receive multiple awards from this fund for the same or different projects.

The grant can be spent on:

• Capital works or expenditure
• Revenue costs of delivering a project
• Environmental improvements
• Improvements to community facilities

Projects must be for wider community benefit and be delivered within the district of West Lindsey.

This fund cannot be used as match funding with other funding schemes delivered by West Lindsey District Council.

To apply for a grant, you must first contact your local District Councillor and discuss your project with them. If your local Councillor wishes to offer funding, you will be sent a copy of our application form.

Eligible organisations

• Registered charities
• Parish and Town Councils and Meetings
• Constituted community groups
• Social Enterprises (e.g. CIC’s)
• Faith or Belief groups and organisations
• Schools or Academies

Projects delivered by schools or academies must be for wider community access and benefit and not to support normal school or business activity.

Organisation requirements

• Constitution or similar governing documents (excluding Parish or Town Councils)
• Bank account in the same name as the organisation
• Safeguarding policies (for projects involving children and vulnerable people)
• Any required insurance policies (e.g., Public Liability Insurance)

The grant cannot be spent on:

• Anything illegal
• Promotion of any religion
• VAT if your organisation can reclaim it
• Support to lobbying or campaign groups
• Anything that will bring the Council into disrepute
• Anything party political, including supporting political organisations
• Match funding with other funding schemes delivered by the Council
• Anything contrary to the Council’s financial regulations, policies or strategies
• Anything that an organisation or local authority has a statutory obligation to deliver
• Projects based or operating outside of West Lindsey unless they provide significant
  benefit to communities within West Lindsey
• Anything that has already been spent or committed before receiving a grant
  (Known as retrospective funding)
• Purchase or installation of defibrillators