Transition Together: Seed Funding

Overview

Overview

Their seed funding programme offers grants to help Transition Groups build their capacity and increase their impact in their local community.

Grants may support groups to pay for coordination or core costs; to develop initiatives such as a social enterprise, a community hub or green space; to run a visioning process; access training or develop partnerships to work in solidarity with under-resourced groups in the local community.

This current round is their largest ever, with £270,000 to disperse to support work for community-led change. Please note this round of grants is the last for which they have confirmed funding at this stage.

What’s on Offer?

There is £270,000 to award to projects by, potentially, 300 Transition Groups in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There are three categories of grants available:

• Micro grants of between £100 and £500.

  • Micro grants between £100 and £500. They have a pot of £40,000 for this category. It's not necessary to apply for the full amount - you may just need £150 for a facilitator fee or some garden tools, for example.

• Full grants of between £500 and £5000.
  • Full grants between £500 and £5,000. They have a pot of £180,000 for this category. All groups are encouraged to reflect on the amount of any bids and ask for a fair share of the available funding which will enable them to spread the benefits as widely and richly as possible. In other words, you don’t need to apply for the full £5,000, unless your project needs it.

• Partnership grants of between £5,000 and £10,000.

  • Partnership grants of up to £10,000. They have a pot of £50,000 for this category. Partnership grants are for a joint endeavour, including at least 2 Transition groups. Partnership grants are appropriate for larger scale projects and can also include additional partners who are not Transition groups. Examples of partnership projects could include projects based on geography - two or more neighbouring Transition groups may want to collaborate together across both their domains, or set up a regional network or host a regional gathering. Or partnership projects could be based on a theme - for example two or more Transition groups may want to work together to set up peer support and training around a specific theme. They are expecting partnership projects to have a higher budget but if your partnership is strategic but inexpensive, please apply for only what you need within the £10,000 limit.

What can be funded?

All types of these seed funding grants are for projects that build the capacity of Transition groups and hubs to enable their communities to re-imagine and re-build towards a more socially just, resilient and environmentally sustainable future.

Projects could include one or more of:

• Experimenting with, innovating around and spreading the take up of community-led and owned solutions to persistent social, economic and environmental problems.
• Capacity-building and coordination to support the core work and deepen the ambition of the Transition group, hub or partnership.
• Gatherings, regional networking, training, peer-mentoring, skill sharing and other ways of supporting sharing of knowledge, inspiration and support.
• Local or regional visioning processes that help communities imagine a healthy, just and resilient future, using inspiring, creative and participatory methods.
• Convening, collaboration, co-design and co-creation with local and regional partners, for example with local government, statutory bodies, charities and the private sector, to achieve greater impact.
• Helping build and develop a sustainable local economy and local livelihoods.

Eligibility Criteria

This seed funding is for Transition groups or Hubs in Northern Ireland, England and Wales registered with Transition Network.If you are not yet registered, please follow this link: https://transitionnetwork.org/transition-near-me/.

If you are considering registering, then you will need to show that you are:

• Fundamentally community-led.
• Of and for your place-based community.
• Holistic in practice. In other words, your group is not based on a single issue and considers first the multiple challenges and possibilities for action in your community before deciding areas of focus.
• Using Transition Principles to guide how you operate.
• New registrations may be contacted by the Transition Together Team for further information.

The grant will need to be paid into a group bank or building society account that requires at least two unrelated people to approve all transactions and withdrawals. If this is not currently possible for your group, you could see whether setting up as a collective with opencollective.com, with at least two expenditure authorisers, could help your group. Or team up with a neighbouring group with a group bank account?

Partnership Grants Criteria

Partnership grants are a joint endeavour by at least two Transition groups. You can apply for up to £10,000.

There are three extra eligibility criteria for partnership grants:

• Partnership grants will be for a joint endeavour including at least two Transition groups, with a named contact from each Transition group partner provided as part of the application.

• Partnership grant applications will identify a lead partner Transition group to whom the grant will be paid.

• The partnership of Transition groups will write and agree to a Memorandum of Understanding about how they will work together. This is not required as part of the application but will be needed before the grant can be paid.

Given the available budget, they don’t expect to award many partnership grants so please think carefully about whether you put the time into this type of application.

You can only apply as lead partner for one partnership application. Your group can be part of more than one partnership application if you are invited to do so by different collaborations - so you can be a lead partner in one application and a non-lead partner in another application; or you can be a non-lead partner in more than one application.

What have they supported?

• Maybe you’ll use your grant to launch a new project like a community hub to develop a food growing and sharing scheme; to kickstart a local visioning conversation or for a fantastic event?
• Or it could help develop your group by supporting coordination or staff costs, help you build relationships and networks, or work in solidarity with under-resourced groups in your community.
• Perhaps you’ve always wanted to explore what a sustainable local economy might look like, and a grant could help create new livelihoods, a co-op or try a social enterprise.

They are really open to hearing your ideas, so even if they don’t come under these themes you are encouraged to apply.

For inspiration see Seed Funding Stories

Projects will need to be completed by 28th February 2025.

What are Transition Principles?

As a Transition group, they trust that you sign up to the Transition Principles. When you are telling them about your project please outline how it reflects those principles. They want the grants to support genuine Transition activity and they’ll use the Transition principles as a guide to judge that. However, they don’t want you to go through each principle and reason your project against them, just please share the spirit of your project with the principles in mind.