Explore

Explore Grants are designed to give organisations a year of capacity to explore the issues they want to tackle, how change might happen and who needs to be involved.

Please note that applications for the first round of funding have now closed. Applicants will be notified of the status of their application in March/April 2023. If you want to stay up to date with news about future funding rounds, please sign up to the Propel newsletter.

Explore Grants will be for up to one year. It is anticipated that in this round up to 20 grants in the region of £50k each will be made. At the end of an Explore Grant, there will be an opportunity to apply for a Deliver and Develop Grant to expand your work.

You can only apply for ONE grant, so you should select carefully whether an Explore Grant is the best fit for your organisation.

What does Propel focus on?  

Propel is about building long-term change in London. London’s Recovery Board (the body which guides the capital’s post-Covid recovery) offers an opportunity to collaborate around short and medium-term aims that already have cross-sector ownership and structures to engage with and listen to Londoners and London’s civil society. Initially, Propel will focus on three of London’s Recovery Missions as springboards for action:  

• A New Deal for Young People: ​​enabling more disadvantaged young people to benefit from quality mentoring and youth activities​​​ and powering systemic change and sustainability within the youth sector 
• Building Strong Communities: all Londoners will have access to community resources, ensuring they can volunteer, get support and build strong community networks. A strong civil society will ensure communities have the voice and tools to make London a more equal and inclusive city.  
• Robust Safety Net: ensuring every Londoner is able to access the support they need to prevent or alleviate financial hardship and building a strong and sustainable advice sector.  

Grants will fund explorations that relate to one of the three Recovery Mission areas above. We recognise that the Missions are connected and your exploration may relate to more than one Mission.

Who will be prioritised for funding?   

Applications from equity-led organisations will be prioritised (i.e. they will be assessed first). By equity-led, we mean organisations led by and for marginalised communities, in particular:

• Communities experiencing racial inequity
• Deaf and Disabled people
• LGBT+ people
• Women and girls

We define ‘led by’ as when more than 75% of an organisation’s Trustees and more than 50% of staff members (including senior) are people from the community or communities that you serve or have lived experience of the issues that your organisation is tackling.  If your organisation serves more than one marginalised community, then the percentage of your Board and staff could also be from more than one community. 

What is an Explore Grant for? 

An Explore Grant will support organisations to:  

• Identify the systemic issue they want to explore. A systemic issue is something that affects the whole ‘system’ rather than just an isolated issue.  For example, poverty and racial injustice are systemic issues. The issue that you choose will need to relate to one or more of the three Missions identified above.
• Engage with the communities affected by this issue, explore with them what change is possible and design how to deliver this change. 
• Understand who would need to work together to deliver this change.
• Develop a proposal for a Deliver and Develop Grant for up to three years for a consortium or partnership to take the work forward.  

Resources and events

Have a look at our Resources and Events page for further information about Propel.

What we are looking to fund

1

Up to 1 Year

20

Up to 20 Grants available

£50k

Up to £50k per grant

Download application form

If you would like to take a look at the application before creating an account you can download an offline version. Please note that applications must be completed on the Propel portal.

Download application form