Long-term grants: Cohort 1

For organisations whose current grant comes to an end on or before 31st March 2026.

If you’re reading this guidance, then congratulations! You’ve been invited to apply for Stage Two of Propel Long-term grants programme. Propel is offering up to seven years of continuous, flexible funding, supporting 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 alongside this document. 

Who are Long-term grants for?

By committing to making grants of up to seven years, Propel partners are investing in those organisations best placed to drive systemic change in, and for their communities. Whilst funding at this scale means funding fewer organisations for longer, a two stage process aims to ensure the success rate at stage two is around X percentage. 

As outlined at Expression of Interest stage, 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. 

What are Long-term Grants for?

Propel Long-term grants are to support the running costs of your organisation and the delivery of your programmes. They’re available to help you understand the changes you want to make and take clear steps towards advancing systems change with and for your community. 

You’ve already used your Propel funding to explore, or develop work around a systemic issue affectingyour 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 in the long term. 

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 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 bank, click here.

A reminder of what you can spend a Long-term grant on

Propel understands that to engage in long term systems change work, your organisation needs some long term stability. These grants of up to seven years 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 systems 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. We’ll be developing a long-term learning plan with successful applicants, but you can expect to attend around three days per year of learning. 
  • 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. Consider 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.

 Propel Long-term grants can’t fund…

  • Individuals. By this, we mean funding sole traders or individuals leading movements or change. 
  • 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., 
  • Delivery that is focused on support of individuals where there is no clear connection to systems change goals.

How to apply for Stage 2

You’ve already submitted an Expression of Interest and have a long relationship with Propel, so we’ll do our best to avoid asking you to repeat yourselves. It’s important to note here that your Propel journeys so far have differed in length and style, and therefore, we recognise that your applications and the information you’re able to include, will be different. This will, of course, be taken into account. 

At this stage, our goal is to build as clear and complete a picture as possible of your organisation’s vision and plans. To do that, we may need to engage further with key members of your team. You might expect follow-up communication via email or phone, and a potential visit to your organisation. These interactions will help us clarify or expand our understanding of your work, as well as explore areas such as governance, financial management, safeguarding, and other core practices. Where possible, we ask that relevant senior staff, programme leads, and those with financial oversight be available during this process to help ensure this part of the process is meaningful, thorough, and reflective of your organisation’s strengths and ways of working.

As mentioned during the EOI stage, Propel funded organisations of different lengths, who all start and finish their projects at different times. Some of you finish in December 2025, others may run through until autumn 2026 and beyond. This is why we’ve created three separate cohorts on the portal, grouping you depending on your grant end date. The deadline to apply in Stage Two will vary accordingly:

Remember that you will also need to update your organisational information if anything has changed since you last submitted your application for EOI. For instance, if you’ve had any changes in governance, or updated your financial records.


Cohort 1: Grants ending before 31st March 2026

Cohort 2: Grants ending between 1st April – 31st August 2026


Cohort 3: Grants ending after 1st September 2026


What we are looking to fund

7
year grants
3
mission areas
75%
to led-by and for organisations

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