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One Community is a relational funder, we aim to foster a flexible working relationship with our grantees, we aim to be as adaptable and supportive as possible, and our approach is based on trust.

Here is how we work One Community is governed by a board of trustees, the trustees are appointed and approved by the members at our AGM. Anyone with an interest in the community can apply to be a member free of charge. Trustees make the final decision on all grants awarded.

Trustee delegate grant-making responsibility to the grants panel members, the chairperson will always be a Trustees and we require two members to attend the panel, we also invite a representative of the donor (A donor can be an individual, a family trust, a local business, the local authority of a national corporate business), in addition, we include people with lived experience or expert industry experience.

Grants panels review the applications and make recommendations to the trustees to fund, partially fund, or reject the applications.

Who else participates in grant-making? We have a Grants team made up of a Grants Manager, Grants Officer and two Volunteer Grants Officers. Between them, they manage the grant process.

How does the grant process work? What happens once I make my application?
Applications are submitted online, when the application is received it is imported by one of the team.
The team will make the initial due diligence checks on your supporting documents and any previous awards made to you from One Community.

What are we looking for:
• If the applicant is a registered charity, we will check the charity number provided matches the registered name and address against charity commission data.
• Is the applicant based in Kirklees?
• Are the annual returns currently overdue or have been submitted late in the past 2 years?
• Are the accounts qualified? – We will reject any applicant with qualified accounts.
• Are there any regulatory warnings issued by the Charity Commission – We will reject any applicant with an active regulatory warning
Governing document checks:
Is the Legal status clear and eligible?
Is there a dissolution cause?
Do the proposed activities within the application fall within the charitable objectives, as stated in their governing document?
We consider the following additional points when assessing applications from social enterprises and CICs:
Social/community benefit
• Do they have clear social /charitable objectives? For CICs, check if they included their CIC36/37 Community Interest Statement with their governing document or is it available to view on the Companies House website.
Asset lock
• Is there an asset lock clause to ensure residual funds and assets are transferred to a named charitable organisation or charitable cause on dissolution?
Management committee or board of trustees/directors
• Do they have a minimum of three unrelated Trustees/Directors?
Bank account
• Is the bank account in the organisation’s name?
• Is the bank statement provided no more than three months old?
• Are the account number, sort code, clear?
• Do the account number and sort code match the details provided on the form?
• Are there two unrelated signatories?
Financial Accounts
Has the applicant submitted formal accounts for the most recent financial year? Note: Companies have nine months to file accounts at Companies House. For those charities which are not companies, the deadline for filing at the Charities Commission is ten months.
• If they have been operating for less than one year – and thus unable to provide a full year’s accounts – have they provided a record of their cash flow so far?
Accounts
In general, what we want to see from the accounts:
• evidence that the organisation can manage the funds it receives; for example, if the group has an income of £2000 typically and is applying for £10,000, we would need to be confident that they can manage the grant.
• Reserves – do they have high unrestricted reserves? Have they explained why they can use this money?.
Accounts provided:
• These should be formal accounts if the applicant is an established organisation, registered charity and/or incorporated organisation.
• Is there a trustee or director report at the front (may not be necessary for small
organisations) we are looking to see the achievements/changes reported last year and future plans, and whether this makes sense in the context of the grant.
• Is expenditure properly explained?
• Do the accounts show a surplus or a deficit?
• If there is a significant deficit, are there any notes to explain this and how it will be cleared?
Balance Sheet (and any accompanying notes):
• Do current assets cover current liabilities?
• Could they pay all their creditors from bank balances?
• Are they dependent on any major creditor and do any debtors look odd/unreliable?

Checking the application form
Evaluations of previous grants.
Have they had any grants from us in the past two years, if they have, do they have any outstanding evaluations? If yes, the evaluation will need to be completed before the date of the panel papers being distributed.
Assessment Against Fund Criteria.
We check the project start date – This must be at least eight weeks after the closing date. We will withdraw the application if the project start date is before the panel and notify the group, we cannot retrospectively fund.
We check the project meets the fund criteria. This can be different for each programme or round.
If the project is working with young people or vulnerable adults, we check if they have confirmed they do have a safeguarding policy.
We do a sense check, is it clear what the project wants to do with the money and how this will make a difference? If the applicant has not provided enough information, we will contact them and discuss the application, and update the system with the data.
If there a clear budget breakdown, have they identified which item’s/costs they want to use the grant for?
Is the budget realistic; for example, we will contribute to staffing costs. We will want to see a budget breakdown of the number of staff being funded, hourly rate and ours being covered by the grant.
Are there any figures in the budget that do not seem reasonable?
If the total project cost is more than the total applied for, have they identified how the remaining balance would be met?
Is the project duplicating provision, for example, have we funded another group to do the same work with the same cohort of beneficiaries?
Our officers may need to ask you questions to clarify your application or project details; the information provided will be presented to the panel along with the original application.
Once this process is complete, a grants panel will collectively consider all of the eligible applications and make recommendations on funding to the Trustees.
The panels are chaired by a Trustee, and at least two members are invited, along with a donor representative where applicable we include expert advisors such as the police and youth services. We also aim to include lived experiences in the panels.
Once the panels have a decision the panel minutes and recommendations are sent to the Trustees for approval. At this point, Trustees may raise concerns about any recommended award. The team will then work with the applicant to answer any questions the Trustees may have.