What is The Boring Fund?​

The Boring Fund helps small non-profit organisations (based in the UK) cover a bit of the boring costs that keep them running. Boring but essential things like insurance, web hosting, admin time: the stuff that’s always so hard to find funding for. ​​

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It’s partly a funding experiment, partly making a point about the state of the stupid funding system.

 

Small, grassroots organisations shouldn’t have to jump through endless hoops to get support. We want to take away the red tape that so often makes fundraising complicated, intimidating and unfair for people doing the proper work on the ground, particularly for marginalised groups. (Big funders with wads of cash, please take note!)

 

The Boring Fund keeps things easy with the simplest application process, £200 grants, and no reporting. 

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Who can apply?

Organisations that: 

• are not-for-profit

• are based in, and primarily delivering work in, the UK

• have a UK bank account in the name of the organisation

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Not-for-profit means any surplus is reinvested into the organisation or its work, not given to individuals. (Not-for-profit doesn’t mean you can’t pay people fairly for work they do for your organisation, it’s just if you have surplus (profit) left over after paying for all your costs, this can’t be given to people as bonus extra money.)

 

You can apply to The Boring Fund if you are a:

• Charity

• Community Interest Company (ltd by guarantee or by shares)

• Limited Company 

• Constituted community or voluntary group/ unincorporated association

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You can’t apply as a:

• School

• PTA or “Friends of” group for a larger organisation

• Individual, sole trader or partnership

• For-profit company that pays profits to directors, shareholders or members

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You must be a small organisation. This means at least one – and I’m expecting most of – the following would be true for your organisation (not all of these things have to be the case. e.g. you might have a higher annual income but no staff or fundraising support):
 

• Annual turnover (amount of money coming into the org) under £150,000
   

• Very small number of paid staff e.g. 0-3 people who do the day to day running of things and juggle all the jobs, probably part time or freelance. (you may have a wider pool of freelance group leaders or volunteers or whatever but I’m talking about main people who put the work in to run the organisation)
   

• No fundraising team or regular paid fundraising staff member
   

• No confirmed core funding or significant multi-year funding- doing stuff on a shoestring, making it work, scrabbling to find enough money for the ongoing boring costs
   

Part of the point of the Boring Fund is for a funder to place more trust in organisations. The examples above show you what we mean by small organisation. Basically don’t take the piss. You know if you’re the kind of organisation this fund is designed for or not. And in return we don’t take the piss. It’s a 5 minute application, no reporting. We trust you to spend the money on something boring that you need. 

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Values and social justice

The Boring Fund will be distributed to organisations across the UK, including to those that are led by- or shout alongside- people whose voices don’t get heard enough (for example LGBTQ+, queer or trans-led organisations, those who are disability led, those with global majority leaders or for refugee and migrant communities). 

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Supporting those working towards social justice is core to The Boring Fund and our values. The Boring Fund will not fund organisations who are not trans inclusive or are not committed to removing other barriers of access / structural inequalities that many people face. 

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You will be asked to confirm that your organisation is in support of these values as part of the application. If it's not a good fit for you then this isn't the right fund to apply for.

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What can you apply for?

All grants are for £200. There will be 30+ grants available. You can use a grant for a couple of different things if one of them costs less than £200, or put the £200 towards the cost of something more expensive. 

 

The grant is to spend the money on something boring and behind-the-scenes, that would otherwise be more difficult to fund e.g. insurance, accountancy, admin time, web hosting, training, office costs etc. Essential but unsexy costs. The grants are not for project delivery or anything too exciting.

 

We cannot fund:

• Any for-profit activity

• Anything that promotes exclusion of – or hate speech towards – people due to their age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.

• Costs you’ve already paid for

• VAT you can reclaim

• Religious activities/ promotion of religion

• Alcohol

• Gifts or cash given directly to individuals

 

Grant terms and conditions

Read the grant terms and conditions. It’s 3 pages, in plain English and as straightforward as possible.

 

Who set up The Boring Fund?

Hi, I’m Christina (she/her). I work with small non-profit organisations to make your work easier to manage and fund. There’s more about me here. The Boring Fund started as a fun donation thing I did on an Instagram reel, based on what I would genuinely do if I won the lottery (set up a funder to fund core, boring costs). I made a couple of donations from my own money. 

 

And then it went bananas and other people offered to donate. I was never planning to set up a funder but when people are offering cash to the kind of organisations you want to support AND you find a cool mutual-aid funding platform that means it’s really easy, I thought I’d give it a go. 

 

The grants all come from individual people donating their own money because they believe in the work of small not-for-profit organisations like yours and agree that the funding system needs to change. There are more than 50 beautiful people who have come together to make this happen. You can see the donations here. 

 

A couple of grant makers and some small organisations have reviewed the application process and given their feedback. Thank you!

 

The Boring Fund finance is managed through our fiscal host, Creative Sustainability CIC, who have been complete legends and waived their admin fee so that all the money goes direct to you guys. 

 

How do I apply?

1-30 November: You can apply using the online form any time in November. The application is designed to take 5 minutes

 

Deadline for applications: midnight on 30 November

 

1-19 December: We will select who gets the grants using a random number generator. There will be 30+ grants available. Those applications will then be checked for eligibility by at least 2 people, including someone who runs a small organisation themselves. 

 

Letting you know: We’ll contact you either way by Friday 19 December and let you know how to claim your grant if you were successful

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Access info

If you need the application form or any other info in a different format- or you need to submit your application in a different way for access reasons- please contact us:

- Use the question form below or

- Message me on Instagram

 

Got questions?

The Boring Fund works on the premise that funders should trust the organisations they want to fund more. If you think you fit the criteria above, you don’t need to contact us to check, please apply (it only takes 5 mins). If you know really that you’re not the scale/ type of organisation this funding is for, we’re trusting that you won’t take the piss and won’t apply. 

If you have access requirements and want to request something in a different format, or have read everything on this page and you definitely still have a question, please contact us here.  (The admin of The Boring Fund is done voluntarily so please bear with us!)