Aims/priorities: The Common Ground Award aims to:
- Identify and reward good practice in building bridging social capital.
- Invest in the physical spaces and equipment that enables good practice.
- Build a community of practice, for knowledge sharing across the voluntary and community sector and with government.
Who can apply? VCSE organisations with a base and operating in England, with charitable, benevolent or philanthropic purposes may apply.
This includes:
- An organisation registered as a charity with the Charity Commission
- A charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) registered with Companies House and with the Charity Commission
- A company limited by guarantee registered with Companies House, that is established for charitable, benevolent or philanthropic purposes
- A community interest company (CIC) registered with Companies House
- A community benefit society registered by the Financial Conduct Authority
- An unincorporated community group or organisation, or an unincorporated association that is:
- established for charitable, benevolent or philanthropic purposes
- has a governing body with at least three members
- has an inclusive membership policy
- has a governing document
- can provide accounts for the last two financial years
- has its own UK business bank account
- can hold land or property and enter into contracts either by itself or via trustees.
Successful applicants will be invited to join a community of practice, with other organisations working towards a shared goal of building bridging social capital in communities across England. This may involve future invitation to events to share good practice across the VCSE sector, and feed into consultative forums hosted by government.
Grant amount: The maximum budget for the 2025 and 2026 financial year is £1.7 million, which is likely to be awarded in January 2026.
The maximum grant is £10,000. There is no minimum grant.
Applicants will be able to set out how capital investment could be scaled up beyond £10,000, up to a maximum of £50,000, which may be considered in exceptional cases.
Applications must state the level of funding required, that can be committed for spending by 31 March 2026.
Application process: The programme aims to ensure a broad geographic spread of awards across England to enable the benefits of funding to reach a diverse range of communities. There will not be a fixed allocation by region, however in the event of a large number of applications, consideration will be given to the geographic distribution of awards.
Organisations will be notified of their application outcome in January 2026 with funding awarded the same month.
Deadline: Friday 21 November 2025.
Contact information: Email: CGA@communities.gov.uk