Aims/priorities: This fund aims to support small-scale capital projects that enhance youth facilities across England.
Who can apply? Youth organisations in 42 priority areas of England can apply including:
- Charities registered with the Charity Commission.
- Not-for-profit companies (including community interest companies and companies that are limited by guarantee with dividend, asset, and mission local) registered with the Companies House.
- Local authorities (where they provide youth services).
- Uniformed organisations.
- Community benefit societies.
Groups must meet the following criteria:
- Be not-for-profit,
- At least 50% of the provision is for children/young people.
- A significant proportion of provision is open access youth provision for children and young people aged 11 to 18 years (or up to 25 years if they have special educational needs or disabilities, are leaving care, or are considered at risk or vulnerable).
- Have been actively operating for at least two years and have at least one set of annual financial accounts.
- Have a bank account in the name of the organisations.
- Have at least two unrelated governing body directors/trustees/committee members.
- Comply with SIB’s Safeguarding Policy.
- Can cash flow the project from their own resources (grants are paid in arrears).
- Can spend the grant and provide eligible evidence of spend with a one to four month timeframe.
Grant amount: A total of £30.5 million is available.
Grants of between £5,000 and £100,000 (per site) are available.
The maximum size of any grant for refurbishment purposes is £50,000. The total refurbishment cost must not exceed £50,000 on a stand-alone basis, and must not have dependencies within a larger and higher cost refurbishment or building project.
Application process: Applications for equipment will be accepted on a rolling basis, whilst applications for refurbishments will have a short, fixed window to apply.
SIB will be holding a webinar on 10 July 2025 (midday) to provide further information.
Guidance notes are available from the SIB website.
Deadline: Applications that include refurbishment will have a short, fixed window to apply. The deadline is Sunday 31 August 2025.
The deadline for all other applications is Sunday 21 September 2025.
Contact information: Email: BYS@sibgroup.org.uk
Website: https://www.sibgroup.org.uk/funds/better-youth-spaces/