VSSN Small Grants

Overview

What they fund

The grant can be used to fund seminars, workshops, roundtables, webinars, and other activities linked to research, learning and teaching.

• They encourage using the grant to support creative approaches such as arts, podcasts, film/ animation.
• The focus is to bring researcher, practitioners and/or policy makers together to facilitate a dialogue on a voluntary sector or volunteering related issue.
• They encourage applications that offer opportunities for on-going discussion.

The focus is to bring researchers, practitioners and/or policy makers together to facilitate a dialogue on a voluntary sector or volunteering related issue. They encourage applications that offer opportunities for on-going discussion.

The types of things they have funded in previous rounds include:

• a ‘Women in Philanthropy’ podcast by and for women working in the giving and social impact sector.
• a workshop to establish a research network to support the expansion and development of the opportunity of cricket for women and girls across Scotland
• a series of online sessions exploring the issue of emotions and feeling in voluntary sector work.
• an in-person day event running a series of sessions exploring and acknowledging complexity and learning from failure during evaluation research.
• training for small charities in making no/low budget films which led to developing an online course.
• a short documentary on the value of place leadership in small communities by Food Friends

Eligibility and suitability

Successful applicants will be expected to:

• Ensure that the proposed activities are undertaken and the grant is spent within 12 months of the notification of the award.
• Ensure the date of activities does not clash with any major religious holidays that could exclude participation
• Publicise their activity as widely as possible, including through VSSN channels e.g. newsletter, discussion list, website and social media
• Write a short report for the grants committee and a public facing note, blog or poster presentation for the VSSN website
• Use the activity as an opportunity to advertise the VSSN to potential new VSSN members (including marketing via other channels, distribution of VSSN leaflets, use of VSSN logo, etc.)

Funding Level

You may bid for an amount up to £750 and can bid as an individual or as a group (although there will need to be a lead on the application as the main contact who will be responsible for the small grant). The lead applicant must be a member of VSSN. If the application involves a group, please specify the reason for this collaboration.