Belfast City Council: Social Supermarket Support Fund

Overview

Overview

The aim of a social supermarket is to offer a sustainable response to food insecurity by seeking to help address the root causes of poverty rather than simply provide food. This is achieved by providing, in addition to food support, a referral network for wraparound support which can include, but is not limited to:

• Advice on debt, benefits, budgeting, housing
• healthy eating advice and guidance
• physical and mental health referral, and
• education, training, and volunteering opportunities to enhance employability skills.

It is intended this will provide a long-term solution, in a dignified manner, rather than short term crisis provision. The overriding aim should be to support and work towards holistic, flexible, sustainable social supermarket type approaches to food insecurity/food poverty addressing both the underlying cause and the immediate need.

The key principles that models should take account of are:

• Providing support ‘beyond food’, such as, access to wraparound support services which transitions people out of food poverty and respects the dignity of clients.
• Maximising existing structures, services, and partnerships to provide wraparound support.

Food supply should ideally come from donations, surplus, or purchased at a discount, however, funding can be used towards the purchase of food vouchers and must use the processes detailed at Section 2.2.4.1 of the Guidance Notes.

Grant award amounts

The Social Supermarket Support Fund in previous years has awarded a maximum grant of up to £50,000.

Please note that applying for a grant is a competitive process and awards are subject to the availability of funds and may be subject to change.

Grant funding is limited. Even if an application scores highly, they cannot guarantee funding.

Who can apply for a Social Supermarket Support Fund

To be eligible to apply for this funding you must be a community, voluntary or social enterprise organisation which provides services for the benefit of people living in the Belfast City Council area. This means that your organisation must meet the following requirements:

• Formally constituted – have a formal governing document such as a constitution or memorandum and articles of association.
• Non-Governmental - is not part of government or under a substantial degree of executive control by government.
• Self-governing – has its own decision-making system and usually a formal constitution with procedures for accountability to independent trustees or its own members or constituents.
• Non-profit-making – cannot distribute any surplus money to owners or members but spend them on serving your basic purpose and this is included in the governing document.
• Voluntary – has an element of involvement of volunteers. This can include board member roles.

The premises from where the project is delivered must be within the Belfast City Council area.

Your organisation must also be able to provide the following at the submission of the application:

• a fully completed application form including Sections A, B, and C
• Governing document - a copy of your constitution or memorandum and articles of association. If it is a constitution, it must be signed and dated as adopted by the Chairperson at the time or the current chairperson to confirm its your organisation’s constitution.
• Bank statements - copies of your organisation’s most recent 3 months bank statements. The bank statements must show your organisation’s name as the name of the account.
• Annual accounts – copy of your organisation’s most recent, current, signed annual accounts. This document must be signed by the Chairperson or Treasurer to confirm it is your organisation’s accounts. The accounts must be no more than 18 months old.
• Management accounts – Management accounts dated within the last three months and signed by the Chairperson or Treasurer to confirm it is your organisation’s management accounts. These are income and expenditure updates that are presented to the board on a regular basis.
• Policy confirmations
  • To be eligible for funding, your organisation must also have policies in place. Please see Guidance Notes.

Belfast City Council is highly unlikely to fund an organisation that is in poor financial health or that cannot prove that it has effective financial controls.

What can be funded?

The grant will provide funding for costs to support your organisation’s delivery of the Social Supermarket including the storage of food.

Please note the following restricted costs:

• Overheads, staff costs, marketing, and project evaluations – the total for these activities combined is a maximum of 10% of the total amount requested. For example, if your total request is £45,000, the maximum you can receive for overheads, staff costs, marketing and evaluations is £4,500.00 in total.
  • Overheads - must be clearly calculated and apportioned. If you are also in receipt of a grant that contributes to the running of your building, and you are also awarded funding towards these costs through this grant, you must notify your BCC Project Officer.
• Staff time claimed for the project:
  • Any staff time charged to the project will only be paid at the normal hourly rate of the post and only where the post is not funded from another source.
  • If you have an appropriate paid member of staff in post (funded from another source) who could deliver all or part of the project, they will not provide funding for that part of the project. If you cannot use your member of staff, they will pay external/sessional rates, but you must explain why your own member of staff cannot work on the project and provide appropriate information. For example, this might be that another project already has a claim on the member of staff, with evidence of the dates and times when the two projects clash or confirmation that your member of staff doesn't have the skills needed and so on.
• Wraparound support – where services are already provided by the organisation or a partner organisation, funding will only be provided where the services are not already funded from another source.
• You must clearly list any costs for facilitators, mediators, consultants, or project evaluators clearly in the budget. You must also describe the work they intend to carry out and how it is reasonable and necessary to your project.
• Petrol receipts must be supported by detailed mileage claims. If your organisation owns its own minibus, they will not pay commercial hire rates for its use in the project. They will pay a maximum mileage rate based on local government rate which includes insurance, maintenance, and fuel use. If you cannot use your own minibus, they will pay hire rates, but you must explain why you cannot use your bus and provide appropriate information, for example, that another project already has a claim on the bus, with evidence that the dates and times when the two projects clash.
• Internal costs - costs for use of own facilities or internal charges within an organisation (notional costs) will only be eligible if they are normally used for commercial activity. If you are also in receipt of a grant that contributes to the running of your building, and you have now also been awarded funding towards these costs through the small grants you must notify your BCC Project Officer. You will also be asked to provide confirmation of this when you complete project monitoring.
• Cash payments - a limit of £20 per cash transaction. Any items of project expenditure more than £20 should be paid for by organisation cheque, BACs, debit, or credit card.

Costs must be proportionate to the overall cost of your project and essential for delivering it. If we do not think that the amount you have asked for is good value for money, they may also offer you less than the amount you applied for. To make sure you provide value for money, they can cap any project costs they are funding. If you are successful, these costs will be shown in the letter of offer, for example, facilitators, residentials, catering, and so on.