The SNG #iwill Fund 2.0 – Wellbeing Champions Programme Grants

 A nine month project for community organisations to engage at least 15 10-20 year olds to become Wellbeing Champions. Wellbeing Champions will be upskilled to learn how to look after their own mental health and wellbeing, support their peers through listening and signposting and raising awareness and advocating in their communities. 

The young wellbeing champions will also be taught about youth social action and will lead on creating, developing and delivering their own youth social action project linked to mental health and wellbeing.

Youth led activities that produce a benefit for communities as a result of the action, and for young people, as a result of taking part in the social action. 

Youth social action can be flexible in delivery and must involve at least one of three core mechanisms that improve the skills, well-being or increasing knowledge of others and sense of belonging of a young person. These are:

• Young people have a safe yet challenging space in which to develop practical, vocational and socio-emotional skills.
• Young people take self-directed action which gives them a sense of purpose that contributes to their well-being, self-concept and/or self-efficacy.
• Young people have the opportunity to engage with different communities, increasing their knowledge of others and their sense of belonging.

To be eligible to apply for this funding, your organisation needs to be one of the following:

• a registered charity.
• a constituted community group.
• a community interest company.
• a charitable organisation.
• a public body at a local level.
• another housing association, established in the UK (preferably smaller organisations with limited resources to capacity build).

Please note, organisations applying for the SNG #iwill Fund must:

Have capacity to recruit young people and deliver a youth social action project within the required timeframes.

Have capacity to deliver on reporting requirements.

Have capacity to take part in SNG #iwill Youth Network meetings which will involve training, support and networking.

Comply with all due diligence checks from documentation sent through the application process.

Organisations must not:

Have been awarded £332k or more of public funding in the last three years.

Projects eligible for this funding must involve young people aged 10-20-years-old and:

• Cost a maximum of £10,000 (note that if you apply for the full £10,000, we will expect your project to engage a minimum of 15 young people in social action opportunities).
• Be youth-led, for example by giving young people choices and the ability to decide what to do as part of the project.
• Offer new opportunities for young people to engage in youth social action.
• Give young people the opportunity to learn new skills and develop their potential and confidence.

• Staff costs – budget for staffing, including full-time staff, part-time staff, sessional staff and other related expenses, for example for a volunteer coordinator.
• Development and capacity-building cost – budget to help build capacity and sustainability of your organization, e.g., staff/volunteer training.
• Volunteer costs – budget for reimbursements of expenses, e.g., telephone calls, travel and meals.
• Activity costs – budget for resources to facilitate a project/activity (which are not already included as part of equipment, volunteer or staffing costs), e.g., catering, insurance.
• Skills development/training, which help young people to be ‘social action ready’.

• Statutory services.
• Activities promoting religious or party-political activity.
• Capital costs/large equipment costs.
• Individual sponsorship.
• Activities generating private profit.
• Ongoing costs of existing youth work – projects must create new opportunities for youth social action.

Applications for our Wellbeing Champions are now closed. The second round of funding is due to open to applications in September 2024.

The #iwill Fund is made possible thanks to a £66 million joint investment from The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to support young people to access high-quality social action opportunities.

The #iwill Fund brings together a group of organisations who all contribute funding to embed meaningful social action into the lives of young people.

The #iwill Fund supports the aims of the #iwill campaign - to make involvement in social action a part of life for young people, by recognising the benefit for both young people and their communities.

By bringing together funders from across different sectors and by making sure that young people have a say in where the funding goes – the #iwill Fund is taking a collaborative approach.

Sovereign is acting as an #iwill Fund match funder and awarding grants on behalf of the #iwill Fund through the Sovereign #iwill Fund.

Find out more about the #iwill Fund .