Guidance for applicants

After two years of working with 131 funded organisations, Propel partners are working on being able to continue funding a selection of funded organisations for up to seven years, to continue their exploration into systems change. When funders and equity partners first came together to begin working on Propel, we were interested in learning what it takes to fund long term, systemic change for London’s communities.

We’ve seen some brilliant work take place over the first few years of Propel funding, and are thrilled to be able to continue funding a selection of funded organisations to continue their exploration into systems change.

For further clarity on specific terms used throughout this guidance, you may want to open our glossary of terms, too.

Who are Long-term grants for?

Anyone who has held a Propel grant express an interest in applying for a Long-term grant. It doesn’t matter who your funder is or was, or what kind of Propel grant. However, making up to seven year grants means funding fewer organisations for longer, therefore, based on current projections, we estimate that we will only be able to continue funding around a third of current Propel funded organisations.

Propel will continue to prioritise equity with at least 75% of long term funding going to organisations led by and for the communities that they serve, and those with clearly articulated goals around systems change.

If you’re considering applying for long term funding, we encourage you to consider the following:

Was my organisation established with the specific aim of serving one of the following communities? (Communities experiencing racial inequity, Deaf and Disabled People , Women and girls , LGBT+ People).
Is my organisation led by and for members of the community that it was set up to serve? By ‘leadership’, we mean more than 75% of your organisation’s Trustees and more than 50% of your senior staff members are from the community that you serve. For example, you might have a majority of women in your leadership, but if your organisation’s purpose is not to specifically address issues affecting women and girls, you should answer no to this question.
Is my organisation confident in explaining the systems change my organisation is trying to address through our Propel funded work? You don’t have to have all of the answers, but you’re able to articulate the root causes of issues facing your communities, and have ideas of how to address them.
Does my proposal build on what we have learned over our Propel funding so far? We don’t expect that you will apply to deliver the exact same activities as those you have been funded for to date, but we do expect a clear connection between the learning you have been generating and how your work is evolving – whether that is building on successes, or adapting to address challenges.

Eligibility criteria

Over the course of the last two years, Propel partners have been learning about the conditions needed to fund organisations led by and for the communities they serve, in addressing systems change. Propel partners felt it was important that funded organisations developed the eligibility criteria for Long-term grants. The below criteria directly reflects contributions from funded organisations who attended the Propel Network Day in November 2024. This has since been reviewed by a smaller number of funded organisations.

Your organisation is led by and for the communities you were set up to support. We will prioritise applications from organisations led by Deaf and Disabled people, LGBT+ people, people experiencing racial inequity and women’s sector organisations. This includes organisations whose work specifically targets those who are part of more than one of these communities, for example disabled women.
Your organisation was set up with the intention of serving your specific target community, and your organisation is embedded within the community or communities that you work to support.
You have a strong understanding of the communities you seek to serve. You’ll be able to demonstrate your community’s knowledge and expertise and find culturally appropriate approaches to engaging.
You’re exploring co-creating or co-produced ways of working with your communities. You’ll be used to meeting beneficiaries on their own terms, making space and time for people to be seen and heard, engaging in ways that work, with a trauma informed approach.
You have a sound approach to working systemically. Your work addresses complex issues facing your communities and works towards changing the wider system(s) for communities in London.
You have a commitment to working creatively. Propel seeks to support organisations to pilot, test, try and learn from what has been changing because of what you’ve been doing so far, even if it may feel like small steps. Consider an example of change that feels significant to your work so far and how you want to build on it.
You’re developing your networks and collaborations. Propel recognises that the challenges we face are too big for any organisation to tackle alone. You’ll be seeking opportunities to learn from others, collaborating and movement building with members of the Propel community and beyond.
You are data and evidence driven, with robust impact measurement. We recognise that data and evidence can be both quantitative and qualitative and include a wide range of inputs and sources including individual stories and lived experience.

What are Long-term grants for?

You’ve already spent up to two years exploring, or developing work around a systemic issue within your community. You might have piloted some work, developed partnerships, upskilled, or expanded your workforce and engaged more meaningfully with your community, and these grants are to enable you to continue that work.

Long-term grants will focus on sustaining your organisation to continue working systemically, engage and support your communities, build partnerships, and deepen your organisational capacity. Propel does not have a one size fits all approach to systems change, and we’ve learned a lot about these different approaches through Propel partners over the last two years. To see our systems change resource hub, click here.

Propel is continuing to focus on organisations working under three themes:

Building Strong Communities:

Programmes where communities can come together to support themselves and each other by:

Working to strengthen voice, leadership, and civic engagement, especially for underrepresented or marginalized communities.
Work that sustains and protects resources, brings assets into community ownership, and empowers people—especially who have least access—to engage in development that affects them

Robust Safety Net:

Building the future workforce for the advice sector, ensuring that advisors are rooted in communities experiencing disadvantage around serving Londoners at point of need.
These programmes also aim to sustain and drive investment into the sector while also serving as a host for the development of a comprehensive London-wide advice strategy.

Young People:

Work that empowers system change and sustainability within the youth sector, in particular by:

Strengthening young people’s voice and leadership;
Connecting smaller and larger youth organisations together with funders, decision makers, and regional networks.
Mentoring activity for young people where support develops skills and capacity for young people to engage in broader systems change activity

Our aim is to ensure a balanced portfolio of organisations receiving long term funding across these themes.

How much can I apply for?

You can apply for up to the same average annual amount as you currently receive through Propel, for up to seven years.
In your application you may include an annual increase of 3% inflation costs.
For example, if you have a current grant of £200k over two years, then the annual amount you could apply for would be roughly £100k. With inflation this would be a total across seven years of roughly £790k.
Organisations may not apply for a total of over £1.5 million. If your current grant exceeds this amount, you will need to adjust your grant request.
As a general principle, Propel funding shouldn’t account for the majority of your organisational income. If you are working in partnership with other organisations, then this can be taken into account. Those partners will be those who are meaningfully involved in the shape of your whole proposed work, for example are undertaking a significant proportion of the delivery of your activities. Typically, consultants that you commission to deliver discrete portions of your work wouldn’t count as “partners” in this regard.
You can be flexible with how you want to distribute the total across the full time period of your request – for instance, if you expect to have higher costs earlier on, then you can ask for a higher amount in the first few years, and reduce the amount for the later years of your request.
Think carefully about the total amount that you are requesting, as you can’t increase this at Stage Two, as we will have made our financial predictions based on the amount organisations have applied for in their EOIs. You can however, change how your budget is constructed, or what sits in which budget line at Stage Two.
If successful in securing a Long-term grant, you’ll be able to review and amend your yearly budget as things change.

Propel Long-term grants can fund…

Propel understands that to engage in long term systems change work, your organisation needs some long term stability. These up to seven year grants are towards the running costs of your organisation and the delivery of your programmes. This may cover some of the following things:

Core costs such as

Staff salaries, training and expenses.
Organisational capacity building, for example recruitment or backfilling of posts.
Staff wellbeing (this will look different for each organisation and we encourage you to consult with your staff to shape this).
Office space and general day to day running costs.
Communications and digital development.
Full cost recovery.

Programme costs such as

Engaging with the people that your work benefits. This can include payments to service users or people with lived experience who participate in the design and evaluation of your work.
Direct delivery with your community which clearly enables you to work towards your change goals.
Building relationships, partnerships and collaborations. If you’re applying as a partnership, ensure you’ve included the costs of coordinating, evaluating and learning from that partnership.
Time to engage with others in the Propel Long-term network. There’ll be more information on this in the “Non-financial support” section of the guidance.
Ensuring the legacy of your work. Consider what resources you might need to support the end of your project.
Delivery equipment. This could include laptops for your programme team, or any other resources needed to deliver your programme of work.

Propel Long-term grants can’t fund…

Individuals.
Activities taking place outside of London or for the benefit of non-Londoners. Propel is entirely focused on supporting London’s communities.
Activities that make profits for private gain.
Significant capital costs (e.g. purchase or refurbishment of a building or other assets) are generally not eligible. However, you might want to budget a small proportion of your grant for some equipment costs, such as computer equipment for staff, and these can be considered where they are supporting the delivery of your eligible activities. We don’t have a set maximum, but it should be clear that the costs are reasonable and support you in the delivery that is relevant to your change goals.
Delivery that is focused on support of individuals where there is not a clear connection to systems change goals.

How do I apply?

An overview

There will be a two stage process to apply for a Propel Long-term grant. We cannot offer all currently funded organisations an up to seven year grant, so it’s important to us at this early stage that only those who are eligible apply, and that the time investment into completing an Expression of Interest (EOI) is relatively short. There will be a simple eligibility quiz on the Propel website to help you ensure you’re meeting our criteria.

The process for applying is as follows:

A short Expression of Interest.
A longer Stage Two application will be required if your application is selected to proceed, with approximately 30% of organisations expected to be invited to this stage, subject to funders’ commitment and approval. Those invited to Stage Two will receive more information on what will be required and when, but you can see what to expect at the end of this guideline.
Depending on your funder, you may be asked some clarifying questions after submitting your Stage Two applications. We acknowledge funded organisations’ previous feedback, and aim to keep this to a minimum.
You will also need to update your organisational information if anything has changed since you last submitted an application to Propel. For instance if you’ve had any changes in governance, or updated your safeguarding policy.

The deadline for all organisations to apply in the EOI stage is 6th May 2025 at midday.

Expression of Interest

All applicants will have an opportunity to complete a short Expression of Interest (EOI) in Spring 2025.

Applications will open on 2nd April 2025 and close on 6th May 2025 at midday. EOIs must be submitted via the Propel Portal. Applicants will be asked seven questions assessing whether or not they are led by and for the communities they serve:

Which of the following best describes the communities you are specifically targeting for your Propel Grant?

What is the main purpose of your organisation? Why were you founded/established?We want to understand the relationship your organisation has to the community (or communities) it supports. For example, your Propel programme might have a focus on women and girls however your organisation could have been set up to support people of any gender

What percentage of the trustees of your organisation self-identify in the following areas: Communities experiencing racial inequity, Deaf and Disabled People , Women and girls , LGBT+ People

What percentage of the senior staff members of your organisation self-identify in the following areas: Communities experiencing racial inequity, Deaf and Disabled People , Women and girls , LGBT+ People.

Is this reflective of the communities your organisation was set up to serve?For example, you might have a majority of women in your leadership, but if your organisation’s purpose is not to specifically address issues affecting women and girls, you should answer no to this question.
However, if your work is targeting an intersection of these communities (e.g. LGBTQ+ people from a community experiencing racial inequity), and a majority of your leadership is reflective of some or all of those communities, you should answer yes to this question.

Please explain in more detail how your organisation meets (or doesn’t meet) the above criteria, and whether this is reflected in your organisational policies or constitution.
We would like to understand more about the leadership of the organisations that we are supporting and how it relates to the mission of the organisation. This information will help us to understand our grantees and inform our process and strategy.

How does your organisation embed the voices and needs of your communities into your practice? This might be through decision making, or co-designing services.

You’ll then be asked the following four EOI assessment questions:

1. What is the long term change you want to see within your community?

This change should be building upon work you’ve already been doing through Propel.
Describe how you want to work towards the change related to the root causes of inequity and injustice for your community. Focus on things that might look different related to how they are now and what would be a meaningful difference for the members of your community related to these causes. How would your community’s experience of structural inequity and injustice be reduced?

2. What will you do with a Propel Long-term grant to contribute to the change you want to see?

Please give us an overview of your programme. We want you to demonstrate the difference you have been making, what you are learning and the key strands of the work you want to do in future?. We are after general descriptions of these activities, not individual details at this point. Note that you don’t have to apply for seven years if you feel you need less.

3. How has your learning through your Propel funded work so far informed your approach to a long term programme?

Rather than listing lessons, share with us how they will influence your future strategies and decision-making. You can focus on learnings related to the programme you are currently involved in, to your community, to the context you are working in, etc.

4. How much money are you requesting from Propel?

This is the total grant amount you are requesting. Propel is offering grants of the same size as you are currently funded (plus 3% inflation). For more information, please refer back to “How much can I apply for” earlier in the guidance.

Expression of Interest Decision Making

You will be notified of the outcome of your EOI during June 2025. We’re expecting to see more applications than we’re able to fund, and aim to give notification of the result of this round with as much notice as possible.

We are aiming to be more open about Propel’s assessment process so Expression of Interest decisions will be made by a panel of Propel partners, made up of funders and equity partners, and decisions will be made based on the following factors:

Whether your organisation is led by and for your community.
How clear your systems change goal is.
Learning you’ve shared in previous reports. (Information you’ve shared about challenges you have faced and things not going to plan won’t be counted against you – we’re interested in how you are learning, so what you have either previously shared or that you include in your Expression of Interest about how you respond to these challenges will be useful to us).
Your organisational readiness to hold an up to seven year grant. What we mean here is the infrastructure your organisation has in place to deliver a project of this scale, and your financial readiness to hold a grant of this size and scale. We’ll assess this based on your organisational documents and feedback from your current funder.

If successful, you’ll be invited to apply for Stage Two, which we’re still in the process of designing. Further information will be shared about Stage Two after EOI submission.

Stage Two

If your Expression of Interest is successful, you will be invited to apply to Stage Two. We’re still designing this process and we are working on the details of it, but you can expect to answer questions around the following things:

What you plan to do. We’ll want to see more detailed plans for years one and two, and an overview for the remainder of the grant. We expect your plans may change over time, and that’s okay.
How your learning so far has informed your next steps. We’re keen to understand how the work you’ve done through Propel up to now will help you shape your long term plans.
How your community will be front and centre of your work. Long term systems work should be driven by your communities.
Who you’re working with, and how you’ll approach partnerships.

A breakdown of your budget. Long-term grants can be for core and/or programme funding, so might look different to project budgets.

Non Financial Support for applicants

We hope this guidance answers the majority of your questions about applying for a Propel Long-term grant, however, the following support is also available to you as you prepare your Expression of Interest.

We will be holding a webinar on 7th April at 2pm for applicants to ask questions and you can register here.
FAQs will be updated regularly, and can be found here.
Draft application forms are available in word format here. We have included a draft of Stage Two questions, but please note these are not final and you don’t have to fill them in unless you are invited to the next stage of the process.
Please note word counts are only a guide. You will not be penalised for writing more or less. We’ve suggested a maximum number of words for each answer (you can go over this number, or your answers can be much shorter!).

Download the application form in Word format here

Your grant manager is not able to offer direct feedback on your Expression of Interest, but is on hand to support you.