£eithChooses 2024-2025 is open for applications now!

£eith Chooses 2024-2025 is now open for applications!
Local charities and community groups* are invited to apply for project funding of up to £5,000 for a new project.
         The new theme this year is Leith Uniting.
Hopefully this is open enough to allow for all sorts of creative interpretations. Looking forward to hearing your ideas for new projects!

As usual, projects are invited that are new or adding new value (not continued funding of an existing service) that will be of benefit to the community in Leith. Projects should be designed to start after 1 April 2025 and run until March 2026 at the latest.

Please do ask for help and support in putting together your application if you wish. Contact leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk Please submit your application as early as you can – that then leaves time for any questions or adjustments that may be necessary, and avoids the stressful ‘last minute rush’! At the very latest, application forms must be submitted by 10th October 2024.

*only organisations that have a Constitution and a bank account may apply

Please download an application form here, and be sure to also download and study the Guidance Notes, to help you ascertain if your project is eligible, and to guide you in putting together your application. Various formats are available:

format Application Form Guidance Notes
DOCX Application form (DOCX format) Gu
idance notes (DOCX format)
DOC Application form (DOC format) Guidance notes (DOC format)
PDF Application form (PDF format) Guidance notes (PDF format)

You will also be able to pick up a paper form at Leith Library, McDonald Road Library, Leith Community Centre, Out of the Blue, Duncan Place.

£eith Chooses Results 2023-2024 – update

Sadly, one of the community groups that had won funding from this round of LeithChooses has closed down. Hence this funding has been offered to the next highest in the list of results – and this group has gratefully accepted.

The list of funded groups is now

  • The Men of Leith Men’s Shed
  • Citadel Youth Centre
  • Edinburgh Remakery
  • Leith Festival
  • Edinburgh Tool Library
  • Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain
  • Hibernian Community Foundation
  • Dr Bells Family Centre
  • Leith Athletic
  • ELREC
  • Edinburgh Community Food
  • Himalayan Centre
  • Hermitage Park School Association (partial funding)

If you want to know more about what all these groups / projects are about, you can check them out at our gallery.

LeithChooses applicants – acknowledging receipt of your applications

LeithChooses has received quite a few applications by now. (Hint: deadline for applications is 24 October.) All the applications that we receive will be acknowledged by Jade Mooney (Jade.Mooney@edinburgh.gov.uk).

But if you have emailed an application and Jade hasn’t acknowledged receipt (sometimes emails with big attachments get stuck), please send a new email with no attachments to Jade. Please also copy in Bruce Ryan (bruceleithchooses@icloud.com), so there is an alternative email route.

Alternatively, please phone Jade on 07708 899544.

a bit more time to get your application in!

We’ve extended the time for groups to apply to be in £eith Chooses 2023/2024 to 24 October. Even if it’s not 100% finished & refined, you should get your application in by this deadline, and ask for help from the Steering Group to tie up some of the loose ends, if needed.

There is £52,000 available for projects of up to £5,000 each. Yours could be one of the 10-12 projects that get funded!

The theme for £eith Chooses 2023/2024 is – yes, we know Glasgow thought of it first-

How to apply

  • Reflect on the 2023-2024 Theme: People Make Leith
  • Think about what kind of project your organisation would like to offer to the community, within this theme
  • Download and read the 2023-2024 Application Form and Guidance Notes
    • These are available below in DOCX format (for modern word-processors), DOC format (for older word-processors) and PDF (Adobe Acrobat, Apple Preview etc) formats.
  • Formulate your community project and calculate budget 
  • Consult partners, if appropriate. Remember that two or more groups may form a partnership, to best deliver a project that meets the theme.
  • Seek support with your application from the £eithChooses team, if you want
  • Write and submit application

2023-2024 Application Form and Guidance Notes

format Application Form Guidance Notes
DOCX Application form (DOCX format) Guidance notes (DOCX format)
DOC Application form (DOC format) Guidance notes (DOC format)
PDF Application form (PDF format) Guidance notes (PDF format)

Timeline

  • Applications –  closes 24 October 2023 (any extensions will be announced at the time)
  • Support available – Email in to ask for further information, to run your plans past the Steering Group or to ask for personalised support ( by visit or online meeting). Contact:   leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk
  • Project Gallery available to view online – from 4 January 2024
  • Voting – online 22 January to 4 February 2023, plus an in-person voting day (27 January)
  • Results Announced – early February 2024
  • Funds Disbursed  – on or before 1 April 2024

Contact can be made via: leithchooses@edinburgh.gov.uk

 

2021-22 Application forms and Guidance Notes now available!

Applications are NOW OPEN,for the 2021-2022 £eith Chooses process. There is £44,102 available from City of Edinburgh Community Grants Fund, supplemented by a further £5,000 donation from Port of Leith Housing Association. Community Groups can apply for up to £5,000.

This year’s theme is:

Reconnecting in Leith:
Nourishment, Creativity, Sustainability

If you are a constituted community group with your own bank account, and are thinking of a project that would benefit the community in Leith, please download and fill in an Application Form, and Guidance Notes, from the links below.

format Application form Guidance notes
DOC (older versions of Word) Application form Guidance notes
DOCX (newer versions of Word) Application form Guidance notes
PDF Application form Guidance notes

There will be an online (Zoom) general Q & A session about applying to £eith Chooses on Tuesday 7 September 2021, at 6:30pm. This may be particularly useful for new groups that have not applied before.  Register to attend via Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eithchooses-2021-22-applications-qa-tickets-168847432215

Further information and support (private discussions) for applicants will be also available on an ongoing basis, as requested,
Contact: caroline.lamond@edinburgh,gov.uk

£eithChooses projects adapt to CO19 crisis

These are extraordinary times, and extraordinary solutions are called for.

In the weeks since lockdown, the £eithChooses Steering Group and the community projects that won £eithChooses 2020 funding have been working together to come up with alternative project designs that stay within the original themes of £eith Chooses, but that are adapted to the current emergency situation. We are happy to report that this is going well, and we are confident that public money will be well spent to the benefit of vulnerable people in Leith.

Adapting their project has been easier for some organisations than for others, just because of the original design and focus of the various projects. Several projects that focused primarily on ‘fighting hunger’ have moved over to making available/delivering food to their service users in this time of emergency (rather than pursuing their original aims of people eating together, in various settings). This was felt by the Steering Group to be entirely appropriate, as it is recognised that many people are really struggling at this difficult time.

Projects that were focused primarily on ‘fighting social isolation’ have a harder job, since ironically – and tragically – enforcing social isolation is the main strategy, globally, of fighting the spread of corona virus! Online communication (Zoom) has become a major tool of course. However, recognising that many (and often the most vulnerable) people do not have access to the technological equipment or the knowledge and skills to use online communication, some projects are setting up phone-based systems to alleviate loneliness for isolated service users, to help identify people with urgent needs and problems, and to provide advice and support.

Several of the applicants that received funding through £eith Chooses are already well launched on their adapted project. We have set a deadline date of 28th June 2020 for all projects to finalise their adaptation plans (bearing in mind that the project has to be completed by 31 March 2021, due to the terms of the funding agreement), The £eithChooses Steering Group continues to communicate regularly and to meet weekly online, so that suggestions and discussions are ongoing, and decisions about proposed adaptations can be turned around very quickly.

The Steering Group has also launched discussion about possible scenarios for 2021.

£eithChooses is coming up!

Make sure YOU take part in £eith Chooses 2020! Hear about it here from past recipients of funding.

Get your applications in NOW (by 6th January) and come along and vote (1st February).