Life Transitions

Summary of the programme

This programme is closed for new applications.

People face changes at many stages in their lives. They deal with growing up, growing old, moving out and moving on. And sometimes these are the times when people feel let down by their services, employers, families or communities.

Change is unsettling and we want to make those transitions a little easier. Children moving up to secondary school, older people moving into retirement after a long working life, parents returning to work – everybody needs support to feel confident when moving onto the next stage of their lives.

The deadline to send us your outline proposal is 1 August 2008.

Different kinds of organisations could apply to Life Transitions:

• voluntary and community organisations and those that work in the social economy
• public sector organisations
• private sector organisations (though our grant must not increase their profits)

Update information for Life Transitions:

• Projects must be focused on a point of transition in people's lives. For example, we are unlikely to fund a project to support carers in general but we might fund a project to help people deal with becoming a carer.
• Your outcomes must show how the project aims to move people on in some way or help them cope much better than they have been.
• Show how your project adds value to existing services (for example the New Deal).
• Employability projects that are mainly about vocational training, CVs, job search and interview skills are unlikely to be successful. We are more interested in getting people who are not working and not looking for a job to engage with services. Or in giving people who have just got back into work help and support to make sure they stay in work.
• We have funded a number of employability, mental health, disability and long term illness projects already. So we are especially looking to see applications that are about other transitions. For example, in-school transitions for young people, older people’s transitions generally, and getting out of debt.
• Demand is high and the average grant size is under £300,000. Applications for large grants, projects that last a long time and for large staffing structures are sometimes not well justified.
• We are unlikely to give a large grant to employ a number of staff without a good understanding of how the project will continue after our grant is over.

For information on the other Investing in Communities programmes, see the table below.

Contact

You can also call our Information Team on 0870 240 2391 if you would like to discuss your idea.