Funding Central
Looking for funding and finance opportunities?
Funding Central is our free website providing access to thousands of the latest funding and finance opportunities, from European, national, regional and local government and charitable sources, for the whole voluntary and community sector, including social enterprises. Through Funding Central you can:
- View all the funding information, including full contact details and download useful documents directly from the website.
Create a personal profile to tailor information to your needs, save searches and store funding programmes that you are interested in.- Sign up to receive weekly newsletter, customised funding alerts and tailored deadline reminders to keep you update to date on new funding and finance opportunities.
- Sign up to the 'Partner Zone' to begin collaborating with other groups.
There is also a wealth of tools and resources, developed by NCVO's Sustainable Funding programme, to help you develop sustainable income strategies appropriate to your needs.
Take a tour of Funding Central and discover how the site could make your life easier.
Who is Funding Central for?
- If you are completely or relatively new to fundraising, try the guided search enabling you to identify the most appropriate funding and finance opportunities.
- More experienced fundraisers can drill down thousands of opportunities to identify the most appropriate funding or finance for your organisation using the advanced search.
- Infrastructure organisations can use Funding Central to access a wealth of support materials to enhance your work with other groups and identify funding and finance opportunities for your own needs. Find out more in the section dedicated to infrastructure support.
- As a funder or a commissioner, you have access to your own exclusive area - the Funder Zone. Here you can explore statistics on your funding programmes or contracts, including web visits and comments made and add your own helpful hints to support fund-seekers.
What Funding Central users say
'It's very, very clear, well designed and well laid out. It's very user-focused. The information is very comprehensive and the bulletin updating us on news, opportunities and upcoming deadlines is brilliant.'
'Saves a lot of time and provides a sense of belonging for a small voluntary organisation without paid staff.'
'I have only been a fundraiser since 2008 and Funding Central has been my trainer and guide in that time.'
Karyn Johnston, Age UK Cheshire East
'Funding Central is a very useful source as the weekly updates remind me of approaching deadlines and alert me to trusts and sources of funding I might not know about. When I have time, I use the search function to narrow down application possibilities and to find new contacts to update on our charity.
'Searching for funds through Funding Central has been particularly useful for finding smaller trusts, who may only give a £100 or so but several together can help get a project started and provide the match funding for the bigger players. Through this free website we’ve secured funding from a range of trusts such as the Bodfach Trust, the Lynn Foundation, the D’Oyly Carte Foundation and the Yorkshire and Clydeside Bank.' Lucinda Antal, Development Manager, National Wildlife Centre.
Read more about how the National Wildflower Centre used Funding Central to secure investment from a range of charitable trusts to support their work.
Watch Celine and Sally from Southwark Community Action share how they are using our free website Funding Central to support community and voluntary organisations in the South London Borough of Southwark find funding for their work.
Funding Central our impact
We regularly review and evaluate how Funding Central is working and how it's benefiting the voluntary sector. We've put together an impact poster to show you how we are doing.
Have a look at the main headlines or view our Funding Central impact poster 2009 - 2011 (PDF 243 KB) in full.
View our Funding Central impact poster 2009 - 2011 in full (PDF 243 KB)
The information in our Funding Central impact poster is based on the following data sources:
- Funding Central user data generated by activity on the website
- Data from the Funding Central User Survey Dec 2011 - Jan 2012 (total 2,934 responses, sent to approx 35,000 Funding Central users)
- Data from Funding Central on-site polling (total 206 responses)
- Conversations with Funding Central users.
About the website
Funding Central was launched in June 2009 and is managed by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations in partnership with j4b Software and Publishing and is funded by the Office for Civil Society.
