Fund aims
The Making Local Life Better Fund is made up of money from individual and corporate donors and seeks to prioritise smaller grassroots community, voluntary and charitable groups improving the lives of local people, particularly those who are vulnerable, under-represented or disadvantaged.
Grant themes include:
- Arts, culture, and heritage
- Education, training, and employment
- Environment, wildlife, and biodiversity
- Equity, inclusion, and fairness
- Health (physical and mental) including social isolation, addiction issues and caring responsibilities
- Poverty and disadvantage, including homelessness, housing, food and fuel poverty, debt advice.
- Sport and recreation
- Stronger communities and cohesion, including refugee support
Key information
Deadline: No deadlines, the grant programme is open all year round. The grant panel meets quarterly: 10th February 2026, 18th April 2026, 11th August 2026 and 10th November 2026. Applicants should submit their application when ready, allowing 12 weeks for assessment.
Grant size: Up to £3,000, we expect to support between 20 and 25 organisations in each quarter.
Eligible costs: Small capital, staffing, volunteer expenses, training, venue hire, running costs, one off project activity, pilot activity.
Geographical focus: Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland
Priorities: Organisations making a difference to local communities, locally run and managed. Other priorities include:
- Organisations which support inclusion, by proactively addressing barriers to participation
- Organisations with a turnover of less than £1,000,000
- Organisations with free reserves or between 3 and 6 months core operating costs
Who can apply: Not for profit organisations, including charities, CICs, companies limited by guarantee and other constituted community organisations with a minimum of 3 committee members/Directors.
Reapplying: Organisations can only have 1 Making Local Life Better grant at any one time. Organisations are welcome to reapply if any previous grant monitoring has been completed. If your application has not been chosen for support, organisations can reapply straight away incorporating any feedback.
Timescales: It can take up to 12 weeks to assess an application. If your application is successful groups will have 12 months to deliver the funded activity.
Before submitting an application, please ensure you read the full eligibility guidelines and guidance notes
If you have any questions, please contact the grant team via
Email: grants@llrcommunityfoundation.org.uk
or telephone: 0116 262 4804
Please note that the inbox and phone are not monitored on Fridays or weekends.
