The Santander Foundation has launched a £1.23 million fund to support local charities helping disadvantaged people across the UK. This follows a pilot scheme of a £250,000 fund for local charities in the South West of England. Santander Community Plus will provide grants of up to £5,000. It is open to small local charities or local projects of national charities with the funding available to cover salaries, equipment or materials. Applications can be made by visiting any one of Santander's 1,300 branches and completing a short nomination form.

Education and youth work: The Mercers' Charitable Foundation supports Education, General Welfare and Heritage and the Arts. The Education strand supports work that, for example: improves educational achievement; builds students' social capital, confidence and life skills; or enriches educational opportunity through innovative projects that use art, drama, dance, music and sport. The General Welfare strand supports youth work. Deadlines are four weeks in advance of meeting dates, which are next in January.

Nesta has opened applications to its new Impact Investments fund, for projects that will improve the lives of old people, boost the educational attainment and employability of children and young people, or make local communities better able to sustain themselves. The fund has £17.6m available to invest and Nesta intends that eventually this sum will grow to £25m.  It will make medium term equity, quasi-equity and debt investments of between £150k and £1m in early-stage ventures based in, and supplying their products and services in, the UK.

The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) has set up the Advice Services Transition Fund to enable local not-for-profit providers of advice services in England to continue to give vital help to people and communities. Up to £65 million will be available to help partnerships of advice organisations to identify new ways of delivering and funding their services in the future.

The Cabinet Office has announced that it is contributing half of the funding for the £65 million Big Lottery Fund (BIG)'s Advice Services Transition Fund. It has also published a review the not-for-profit social welfare advice sector in England. It shows that the Government has a role to play in supporting the sector to adapt to the new funding realities, but advice providers will also need to take the initiative and change the way they work. Visit: www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk

The charity that distributes the money raised by the Health Lottery has launched a new funding programme that focuses on those neighbourhoods whose inhabitants have the worst health in England, Scotland and Wales.
The new People’s Health Trust grants will be available to locally-based charities and community groups with income of £200,000 a year or less.
The Active Communities Funding Programme aims to “help close the health gap between rich and poor”, by allocating grants to those communities where the people living in them will, on average:

A total of £120m will be made available to boost services for early years, safeguarding and the care system as part of a Department for Education grant programme, it has been announced.

Voluntary and community sector organisations, social enterprises and organisations bidding on a "not-for-profit” basis, will be able to apply for the cash, made up of £30m in grant funding and £30m in contracts, in both 2013/14 and 2014/15.

Trustees will consider grants of up to £1,000 for smaller charities active in serving the social and/or educational needs of their communities. The Trust can only accept applications from charities with an annual income of less than £200,000. Trustees meet twice a year in July and November - applications for the November meeting must be received by the end of September. Visit: www.thomaswalltrust.org.uk

The Kelly Family Charitable Trust is interested in funding charities whose activities involve the whole family in initiatives that seek to tackle problematical issues that face one or more of its members, and whose aims include the strengthening of family bonds by helping all elements of the family unit to grow together and support each other. Grants will typically be between £1,000 and £5,000.

Cash 4 Clubs offers sports clubs in the UK the chance to win grants ranging from £250 to £1000. It is a scheme aimed at giving community clubs a helping hand and provide the opportunity to raise the money they need to invest in their club. The next panel meeting will be in November 2012. Visit: www.cash-4-clubs.com