If you are currently in grant with John Lyon’s Charity, please use this section of the FAQs to help guide you with any questions or queries regarding the grant process from start to finish. If you cannot find the answers you are looking for, please contact us on 02072591700 or email us at [email protected] to discuss the matter further
Click to navigate to the relevant FAQ section:
- Grant Holders
- Monitoring and Reporting
- Branding Guidelines
- Terms and Conditions
- Reapplying for funding
- Revoked Grants
- Complaints Policy
Grant Holders
- Claiming your grant
If your application has been successful and you are awarded a grant from John Lyon's Charity, you will receive formal notification by email. This email will contain several documents in relation to your Grant. Please find the approval process below:
1. The Approval Letter
This informs you of the amount of grant that you have been awarded and the terms and conditions of that grant. It will also detail how to claim the first tranche of your funding.
2. The Contract
You will need to return a signed PDF copy of the Contract once you have met any conditions specified on it and you are ready to claim the grant.
We pay our grants directly into your nominated bank account, the details of which are requested on the Second Stage Application Form. You will need to confirm these bank details on your Contract. If you have not yet supplied the Charity with an original Bank Statement, you will need to include one when returning the signed Contract.
3. Signatures
The Grant Contract must be signed by your Chair of Trustees or a member of the Board of Trustees (charities) or Chair of Governors or other Governor (schools).
Your Trustees / Governors are responsible for ensuring that the funding that you are awarded is used for the charitable purpose for which it was agreed. When they sign this Contract, they are also confirming the bank account details completed are correct and any grant conditions have been met. The signatory is checked with the Charity Commission and your annual accounts. For Local Authorities, the signatory needs to be the relevant Departmental Director.
If a CEO, Headteacher or equivalent person with responsibility is signing the Contract, they must include their job title and name of charity or school to be compliant.
4. Timescales
Your signed Grant Contract should be returned to the Charity in a timely manner. It is expected that all grants will be taken up as close as possible to the time of award and definitely within the same financial year that they were awarded. If there has been a delay to your project start date, please contact your Grants Manager as soon as possible.
5. The release of payment
If you have returned your Contract and completed all the conditions, we will release your grant payment. For Capital Grants we will generally not release funds until building work has commenced.
- Informing us of significant events
It is necessary for you to keep the Charity informed of any significant events that will have an impact on the work that we are funding, or on your organisation as a whole. Please do not wait until the end of your grant to advise the Charity of these changes.
You should inform the Charity immediately if any of the following changes occur:
- A change of post holder whose salary is paid for by a grant from John Lyon’s Charity
- The departure of a key member of staff in the project or organisation, even if we are not funding that post (e.g. Chief Executive, Project Manager, Youth Worker, Development Manager etc.)
- Significant delays or changes to the project we are funding
- A major organisational change or new policy direction
- A change to your organisation’s name or constitution
- Significant and unexpected changes to your Trustee board
- A severe funding crisis or other threat to the viability of the organisation including insolvency
- A potential merger
- Winding up of the organisation
- Any other significant change to your organisation or project.
Monitoring and Reporting
- Reporting
Your contract with the Charity requires you to submit a report on the expenditure of your grant and includes a reporting deadline for each year. You will also receive an automated reminder that your report is due one month before the deadline.
All reporting is administered and submitted via the Grants Portal under 'Requirements'. You can also check your Grants Portal 'Requirements' to find out when your report is due. If you have any queries regarding reporting or reporting deadlines, then please contact your Grants Manager.
- One-year grants
For one-off grants you will need to provide a report within one year of receiving the money. You must report to us within this period even if you have not spent all of the grant.
- Ongoing grants
For 'ongoing' or 'multi-year' grants of up to three years, you will need to submit a report for each year of funding. Each report should be submitted within ten months of you receiving the grant detailing the way you have expended the money. This is to ensure that subsequent tranches can be processed with no gap. If you are reporting on the final year of your ongoing grant, a report must be submitted within one year of you receiving the money. You will also need to submit your latest signed and audited accounts or confirm when they will be available to us.
Please note: You will be able to view the reporting forms on our Grants Portal, from the time your application has been approved. This can be done by clicking on the report under the 'Requirements' tab.
For guidance on how to submit a report online, visit our Grants Portal Guidelines page.
- Monitoring Visits
Your Grants Manager may also undertake a Monitoring Visit to see how your project is progressing. If your grant is related to a specific activity (for example, an arts workshop) please advise your Grants Manager of the session dates over the year so that they can attend at an appropriate time.
- Why is reporting important?
If you receive a grant from the Charity, it is a contractual requirement to report each year on the progress of your grant. We need to learn from the experience of those who received grants we expect reports on the progress of each project. Without this feedback, examples of good practice and valuable initiatives can be lost. The information we get back from supported projects will also help shape future policy.
For the Open Programme and Schools in Partnership Fund, yearly Monitoring Reports must be submitted for consideration by the Trustee. The Charity must receive approval from the Trustee in order to release the next tranche of grant.
All grant holders must submit a Final Report at the end of their final year of funding. It is important to know that the Charity cannot consider any future applications until all outstanding reports have been received.
- When will my organisation have to submit its report?
Reporting deadlines will be provided via the email sent to inform you that your application has been successful.
Important: The Charity cannot consider any future applications until all reports have been received.
Branding Guidelines
- Branding Guidelines
As part of your Contract with John Lyon’s Charity, we require that you acknowledge the Charity’s grant in your publicity materials. This includes but is not limited to:
- website and annual report
- social media platforms (following John Lyon’s Charity on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn)
- media opportunities (including TV/radio/online/print)
- or in other ways such as plaques or donor boards, where appropriate.
You can request the Charity’s logo by contacting our Communications Manager, Florence Battersby-Bates at [email protected]. Before publishing any content that includes John Lyon’s Charity branding, please double check with Florence and your Grants Manager that it adheres to the Charity’s branding guidelines.
The logo should not be taken from the Charity’s website or other online materials without the Charity’s consent. If you do display the Charity’s logo, you must adhere to the Charity’s identity guidelines, which you will find on page two of the Charity’s Branding Guidelines.
Please note that we should only be referred to as John Lyon’s Charity in any context. If we have been referred to incorrectly, we may ask you to withdraw any printed materials or expect a correction to be issued. We are more than happy to review proofs of any marketing materials; in fact, we encourage it. To download a copy of the Branding Guidelines, please click here.
Terms and Conditions
- Terms and Conditions
In signing the Grant Contract, your organisation agrees to adhere to the Charity’s standard Terms & Conditions, Branding Guidelines and Revoke Policy which accompany the Grant Contract. To access the Charity’s standard Terms & Conditions, please click here.
If you have any queries regarding the Charity’s Terms & Conditions, then please contact us on 02072591700 or email us at [email protected] to discuss the matter further.
Reapplying for funding
- Can I reapply for funding with John Lyon’s Charity?
If you would like to make a further application to the Charity, you should contact your Grants Manager six months before the end of your current grant period. In some circumstances fixed-term grants may be eligible for renewal depending on circumstances, records of achievements, and the availability of funds. Requests for repeat funding are up to the discretion of the Trustee and are handled on a case-by-case basis. In most cases, a pause between funding periods will be recommended.
- I have an existing project for which funding is about to run out. Can you help?
Yes, we are happy to fund existing projects. However, we are unable to give grants as direct replacements for the withdrawal of funds by statutory authorities for activities which are primarily the responsibility of central or local government.
- You have funded our project already - can we come back for another grant for the same purpose?
In some exceptional circumstances fixed-term grants may be eligible for renewal depending on changing circumstances, records of achievements, and the availability of funds. This is up to the discretion of the Trustee and is handled on a case-by-case basis. Usually, after a funding period there should be a pause in funding of at least 18 months.
Revoked Grants
- Revoked Grants
It is very rare for a grant to be revoked. However, it does happen. Therefore, it is vital that you understand the importance of the Charity’s Terms and Conditions, which are included in the signed Contract before funding is released. A revoked grant will only take place in situations where:
- a significant failure has occurred.
or
- is the option of last resort when grants are not progressing as hoped and the Charity no longer holds confidence in the grant being utilised as proposed to the Trustee in formal applications.
It is not within the Charity’s interest to revoke a grant, so we insist that all grant holders read our Grant Revoke Policy in the hope that this does not happen.
Complaints Policy
- Complaints Policy
We set ourselves high standards in how we operate, but if you feel that we have not met your expectations and wish to make a complaint, then complaints are encouraged to be sent in writing to John Lyon’s Charity – Savoy Strand, 105 Strand, London, WC2R 0AA or by email at [email protected].
To access our full Complaints Policy in full, please click here.