How to get funding as a CIC (Community Interest Company)

How do I get grants for my CIC (Community Interest Company)?

Can I apply for funding as a CIC?

Where can I find funders who will give money to a CIC?

The headlines

One of the great things about being a Community Interest Company, rather than a charity, is funding your work from trading, or selling products or services as well as grants. But you may have found, as you start looking for funders, that lots of them say they will fund charities only and it can get really frustrating. 

But don’t lose hope! There are ways of setting up and running your CIC which can give funders the same reassurance that being a charity would, and there absolutely are funders who are interested in giving cash to Community Interest Companies. So here’s a round up of how to find those funders, and once you’ve tracked them down, how to convince them your work is charitable enough to be funded.

I’ve made this detailed so that it’s actually useful, so strap in, buckle up and shout me if you have any questions.

If you want monthly support like this to your inbox and info about funding workshops and opportunities you can also join the squad here.

4 ways to find funders who will give grants to CICs

1. Think local

Funders who are interested in giving money to projects in a particular area (e.g. your town or county) will often fund a range of voluntary, community and not-for-profit organisations- so this usually includes CICs. Start here:

• Your local Community Foundation: They usually have several different grants you can apply for. You can find the Community Foundation for your area here.

  
  

• Your local Voluntary and Community Sector support organisation: They’ll have knowledge of local funders and usually a funding newsletter. Googling your place name and VCS usually helps track them down but DM me if you’re stuck. 

  
  

• Your councillors: most have a budget to give at their discretion to projects in their ward. It’s hundreds rather than thousands of pounds per project but can be useful to include in bigger funding applications to show you have some cash lined up already, or to get something off the ground. Start with your local council website (they may also have a funding page to nose at and give out some grants themselves), track down your councillor and make them your bestie.

2. Think big

Several of the big funders will fund CICs, including National Lottery Awards for All and Community Fund, Sport England, Arts Council England, Comic Relief and Heritage Lottery fund.

The big name trusts and foundations, particularly those interested in social change and addressing inequality in funding, will also fund CICs- ones like Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Esmee Fairbairn and Barrow Cadbury. National companies that distribute funding, like Tesco, Co-op Bank, Lush, One Stop shops and Greggs (yes the sausage roll people) also usually support CICs. 

3. Get partnered up

Working in partnership with other organisations can open up funding possibilities. You could collaborate with a charity that has shared goals or communities they support. They could then be the lead applicant on a funding bid, opening up the range of funders you can apply to. 

Bigger organisations often have call outs for projects where they’re distributing larger pots of funding. Think arts development organisations and culture trusts, sports and healthy living development orgs, history and heritage orgs and festivals. Get on their mailing lists and social to be in the loop. 

4. Send out the search party

Charity Excellence Framework have a funding database you can search which includes an option to filter by funders for social enterprise, here. There are also several online databases, like Grants Online, which cost to subscribe but usually have some kind of free offer e.g. a newsletter or a limited search you can do without registering.

You can search the Charity Commission database for trusts (a type of charity that gives out grants and funding), and search by place or topic they’ll fund. (I’ve got a video on how to do this here). It’s then a rainy day research job to go through the list and see what they fund and if they fund CICs. (or if you want this work done for you there’s a couple of people I can recommend).

Your local voluntary and community sector support organisation may also have a database you can search.

3 ways to make sure you can bag the funding as a CIC

1. Get your house in order

Because you aren’t a charity, most funders will have requirements about how a CIC is managed and run, if they’re going to fund you. This helps reassure them that the funding will be used for the planned purpose and gives some accountability to make sure you can’t just run off to Barbados on holiday with it.

Common things that funders ask for from CICs are:

• Having at least 3 non-related directors on the board (i.e. not family members, living together, in a relationship)

• For the majority of board members to be unpaid i.e. volunteering as a director

• 2 unrelated signatories on a bank account in the CIC’s name

• A CIC which is Limited by Guarantee not Limited by Shares

• Having good governance e.g. good decision making processes which make sure that the money will only be used for charitable activity. This includes things like regular board meetings, a conflict of interest policy, good financial procedures and checks, and a process for fairly agreeing things like salaries.

If you have any questions about this or you need a template conflict of interest policy DM me or email me.

2. Make sure the work is charitable

If a funder says they will fund “charitable activity”, there’s a good chance they’ll fund CICs. As a CIC you can have some activities which are nothing to do with your community benefit work, but most funders require that any activity you want to get funding for, must be for the benefit of the public and be “charitable”. So what does that mean? 

It’s not just something that’s positive and people enjoy, it needs to be something which falls under one of the 13 charitable purposes as legally defined in charity law. They’re explained here and include things like “the advancement of health” and “the prevention or relief of poverty”. If you can get past the Victorian style language you’ll get the idea. 

Your activity needs to fit at least one of these purposes AND be for the public benefit i.e. not just set up to benefit your organisation or an individual. 

If you haven’t registered your CIC yet you can help your case by including charitable purposes in your CIC36 form (which you submit when you register) and in your objects (the purpose of your organisation) in your articles of association that are registered with Companies House. If you’re already registered, then don’t worry, it’s just about making the case in your application for why the work you want funding for is charitable. 

If all of this is making your eyes glaze over, DM me or email me and we can chat through it for your organisation. 

3. Make sure your funding bids show off your work

This is a much bigger topic than I can do justice to here but my top tips for successful funding bids include:

• Get the funder excited about your work- sell it baby! Use clear, confident language to share exactly why your organisation and the work you do is brilliant. 

• Focus on what your work does, rather than just what the activity is. Make sure you’re clear about the transformation your work makes, why it’s needed and how people benefit from what you do. 

• Include all the information a funder would need to make a decision. It’s easy to miss things when you’re so close to it, so rope in a friend to be an outside perspective on your application- the less they know about it the better. Get them to read it and explain the project back to you- do they understand it? 

• Like you would with a job application, tailor your funding application to the funder reading it- what are they interested in? What do they fund? Make it clear how you fit their criteria.

What next?

The important stuff always ends up at the bottom of the pile when you’re focused on the day-to-day running of your CIC. The only way to get the time, is to make the time. So block out a couple of mornings, days, hours, whatever you can, in your calendar now and reserve that time for researching and planning funding bids. 

I have training here on how to write funding bids. It’s designed for organisations like yours and is low cost, instant-access online training so you can get support whenever you need it. 

I cover the common questions funders ask, demystify the process and share all my techniques for successful bids. (In my time running and supporting organisations I have £4.2 million+ in successful funding bids under my belt)

If you want to pump up your organisation’s fundraising potential, my main programme, Sticky-note Strategy, helps you create a visual plan for your CIC (with jargon-busting creative activities, using sticky-notes!). You’ll develop your pitch, organise your programme, involve partners and collect proof of why your work matters, all of which makes it easier to get funding. 

If you want help with other aspects of running your organisation, join the squad and get a monthly dose of free support. Sign up here: