Women's Suffrage Centenary Grants Scheme

We are seeking a grant administrator to oversee the application and award process for the Women's Suffrage Centenary Grant Scheme (WSCGS).

A fund for £5 million was announced by the Chancellor in the Budget in March 2017 for projects in England to mark a hundred years since women won the right to vote and stand for Parliament in 1918.

The Government's aims for this women's suffrage centenary fund are to support projects that:

The Women's Suffrage Centenary Grant Scheme, totalling £1.5 million, is part of the centenary fund and will have two dedicated streams.

The small grants stream (with an individual grant ceiling of £2,000) is expected to support local or community events across England that would help deliver the "Celebrate/Remember" objective by raising national awareness of the centenary and the significance that this hard won right to vote still has today.

The larger grants stream will provide funding from around £2,000 to £125,000 to projects supporting the 'Educate' and 'Participate' objectives by increasing young people's understanding of and engagement with democracy; and encouraging women to participate in public life.

We expect the projects to engage audiences via a variety of media forms e.g. arts, digital, social, broadcast, classroom, etc. We are especially interested in projects that contact disengaged groups.

We are seeking an established organisation with particular expertise in gender equality and democracy; huge network reach; and experience in grant administration to run the grant scheme.

We would want the WSCGS to cover a range of geographic areas, have national reach from large scale "set piece" activities to local and community projects and ensure that successful bids are spread over the 'Educate' and 'Participate' objectives as well as "Celebrate". We would expect the grant scheme to be promoted by the administrator to encourage applicants.

Additional information: We anticipate around 5-8% of the £1.5m (incl. VAT) budget being spent on the administrative costs of the Grant fund. This would likely mean admin costs of £75,000-£120,000 .

Please contact Suffrage.CENTENARY@education.gov.uk enquiries and tender documents.