Cash-First Fund: form and guidance

Who can apply

Applications are invited from Partnerships for funding to support local activities linked to improving urgent access to cash in a crisis.

For the purposes of the Fund, a Partnership is made up of representatives from local, public and third sector services that provide assistance to people experiencing financial crisis, who have agreed to work collaboratively towards the objectives of the Fund.

An existing group can take on the role of being a Partnership where this fits within their existing remit. Partnerships do not need to be legally constituted but should be established with a Memorandum of Understanding for the purposes of this Fund.

Membership of a Partnership should include many if not all of the following:

• Local food banks and community food initiatives
• Local money advice services delivered by the public or third sector
• Local authority teams that are the first point of contact for people experiencing financial crisis, including the Scottish Welfare Fund team
• Other local services that may currently refer to food banks, such as representatives from housing and homelessness, education, health and mental health, social work, and employability

People with direct experience of accessing crisis support must be involved throughout the work of the Partnership, including at the planning stages.

Who can receive funding

Each application must have a lead partner with the authority to represent their Partnership for grant administration purposes and to take overall responsibility for delivery. This could be:

• A public sector body, such as a local authority, health and social care partnership, or NHS health board
• An incorporated community or voluntary sector organisation

Individuals, sole traders and for-profit organisations are not eligible to apply for this Fund as the lead partner, but could be members of a Partnership.

Geographical coverage of proposals

We welcome proposals which cover an entire local authority or health board area; a locality or community within a local authority or health board; or multiple areas within local authorities or health boards working together to test an approach to a shared problem.

Number of applications permitted

In order to secure a good geographical spread of activities across Scotland, we would encourage no more than one application from each local authority area. Multiple applications will be considered where the lead partner is an NHS health board with multiple local authorities within their remit.