Independent Age: Cost of Living Grants

Overview

The cost-of-living crisis is having a particularly negative impact on the lives of older people.

Currently more than 2.1 million older people live in poverty, with more than three million estimated to be living in a financially precarious situation where one significant cost could push them into poverty.

The current cost-of-living crisis is increasing those existing pressures in a number of ways:

• fuel, food and energy prices have increased dramatically
• autumn and winter will bring increased pressure as the colder weather hits and the energy price cap increases again
• the pension triple lock was paused this year, so restoring it for next year, while welcome, will not come soon enough to deal with the current crisis.

Results from YouGov polling of people aged 65+ in England found that:

• 50% said they were having to cut back on spending compared with spring 2021
• 46% are having to reduce spending on heating, 36% on clothing and footwear and 32% on social activities
• 48% could not afford a £50-per-month increase in their cost of living
• 44% are anxious about their finances at the moment.

Aims of this fund

In response to the cost-of-living crisis, Independent Age is looking to provide a rapid response in the form of grants to local organisations across the UK, to help make sure that people aged over 65 do not have to choose between buying food to eat and heating their home.

They are looking to support local organisations that can increase the amount of money in the pockets of older people. This could be either through maximising people’s income – for example, by providing support to claim benefits or to reduce expenditure, such as by switching energy provider, getting housing support or debt advice, or considering social tariffs – or providing short-term help to people living in poverty who are facing a particular crisis

Projects must be in addition to or an extension of existing work – they cannot fund business-as-usual projects.

This fund will support projects like:

• advice and information initiatives – such as helplines, drop-in sessions or community outreach work – that provide guidance to establish whether someone is entitled to relevant benefits
• active support programmes that, through guidance to fill in forms and the like, help over 65s to claim benefits they are entitled to
• budgeting advice and/or support to access better energy deals
• debt advice, where an organisation is appropriately registered to give this
• short-term help, such as access to grants to deal with one-off costs or emergencies or subsidised property maintenance, for older people already struggling financially.
• ongoing practical support to reduce the impact of poverty in later life.

Eligibility

Grants are available to registered and exempt charities, CIOs and CICs, with annual turnovers exceeding £100,000, or partnerships/collaboratives where the lead body meets these criteria. Priority will be given to smaller organisations and those embedded in the communities we are particularly targeting for this fund.

Funding priorities

It is likely that this fund will be oversubscribed, and they will not be able to fund every good project that applies. They will assess every application on its individual merit and look to prioritise, although not exclusively, strong applications in the following areas:

• projects that reach members of the community that research shows are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis – that is, older people from minority communities, those without an occupational or private pension, those renting privately or socially, and single older people or those living alone, particularly women
• projects that target areas of high economic deprivation, particularly among older members of the community, in every part of the UK
• projects that can be scaled up efficiently and effectively to make a difference to more older people.

They have based their definition of areas of economic deprivation on both the list of local authorities by income deprivation affecting older people,1 and all published data for indices of multiple deprivation for England and Scotland.

Grants available

A total of £1 million is available, and they expect to be able to award £40,000 to 25 projects.

They have fixed the amount of funding available to enable organisations to focus on the potential reach and impact of the available funding. Organisations shortlisted for phase 2 will be expected to provide a project plan and budget that demonstrates how the grant will be spent. Funded projects should start from November 2022 and should be completed by no later than the end of December 2023.

In response to a current crisis, through the phase 2 assessment, they will consider an organisation’s readiness to deliver.

Grants cannot be used to retrospectively fund work already completed or under way, and they expect their grants to reach more older people beyond those already supported. Projects must take place within the UK and must be publicly accessible.

Eligible organisations

Applications are open to organisations with a turnover of at least £100,000 and that also:

• already work with older people – so, your proposed work should build on what you currently do
• are a registered or exempt4 UK charity, charitable incorporated organisation or community interest company
• have at least three non-related trustees or equivalent
• have at least one part- or full-time member of staff
• have two years of published and signed accounts, which have been independently examined or audited
• have unrestricted reserves of less than one year’s expenditure, based on the most recent set of published accounts
• have a bank account in the name of the organisation.

Future plans

Organisations ineligible for this fund – specifically those working with older people to deliver other types of support, and/or community organisations with a turnover of less than £100,000 a year, are invited to email them to register their interest in future grant programmes. They will then send you a survey to find out more about your work.

In particular, they are considering offering organisations access to training, materials – including our own information and advice booklets – and additional support to help them keep up to date with good-quality advice, guidance and ways of directing older people to sources of help at this challenging time. If such a programme is of interest to you, please email grants@independentage.org.

If you have a great idea for a project but are a smaller organisation and ineligible for the current fund, they are considering developing a complementary fund alongside this one. This fund will be aimed at smaller organisations and provide training and materials based on their own information and advice guides, to build the capacity of community groups. If this would be of interest to your organisation, please email them at grants@independentage.org, because this will help us to understand the demand and to shape the programme.

Grant-funding terms

Funding offers to successful applicants will be made subject to the applicant’s acceptance of a grant agreement, which must be signed before the project can start. Payments will be made according to the following schedule:

• 50% upfront, on return of the signed funding agreement
• 45% on submission of a satisfactory mid-project monitoring report
• 5% on completion, subject to submission of a satisfactory final monitoring report and case study.

Match funding

They welcome applications from organisations that can bring in additional funding or in-kind support – for example, donated materials, staff or volunteer time – from other sources to extend the scope of the proposed work.

They are particularly interested in seeing matched support being used to increase the impact or reach of the work – for example, where specialist knowledge, skills or resources are made available that were not previously and/or where additional economies of scale can be secured.

Eligible costs

They want you to be able to use this funding flexibly. So, it might be used to cover the costs of an additional role to deliver the work, or to produce resources to help expand the work you do. They have purposefully kept the budgeting requirements for this programme light touch, to enable a focus on the outcomes you will achieve. They cannot, however, retrospectively fund work that has already started or that is simply part of your existing offer. They also cannot provide funding for capital investment projects, grants for individuals – directly or indirectly – or work being undertaken by for-profit organisations.

Grants Awarded

To view funded projects visit the website here