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  1. Home
  2. Advice
  3. Voluntary and Community sector
  4. Funding for voluntary and community organisations

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We are redesigning the council website to make it easier for you to find support and access council services online.

We'd love your feedback on our new design ideas. Your feedback will help us decide which design works best for everyone.

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Local Initiatives Fund

You can apply to the Local Initiatives Fund (LIF) to deliver benefits to Islington residents. Find out how to apply.

Local ward councillors have an annual budget of £13,000 per ward for small grants that deliver benefit to the residents of their ward. They can go towards a variety of locally run activities like:

  • sports clubs
  • local festivals
  • youth activities
  • estate community events
  • environmental improvements
  • education and training classes 
  • pensioner outings and day trips

Application deadlines 

  • Thursday 28 May 2026: Final decisions communicated to applicants by mid-August 2026.
  • Tuesday 22 September 2026: Final decisions communicated to applicants by early December 2026.
  • Thursday 21 January 2027:  Final decisions communicated to applicants by early April 2027. 

We strongly advise you to contact your local councillors for each ward before applying. 

Do not contact ward councillors until Monday 11 May. This is because local elections are on Thursday 7 May and there may be new ward councillors. 

Find out who your local ward councillors are.

The LIF normally funds projects in advance of them taking place. It is likely that funding will not be fully confirmed until two to three months after the application deadlines. We recommend that you apply at least three months before your project takes place if you need the funding before delivering your project.

If your organisation submits an application form after any of the dates above, it will be considered in the next round of applications.

If you have received a Local Initiatives Fund award since June 2023 and that project has finished, make sure you have sent all the required monitoring information before making your application. We won't be able to accept your application until we receive all of this information. 

Guidance and application form

Apply now

Previous grants

Email LocalInitiativesFund@islington.gov.uk if you would like information on previous grants. See the Democracy website for the decisions made by the Voluntary and Community Sector Committee who formally agreed all LIF grants up to March 2024.

All LIF grants from March 2024 onwards are reported to the Executive once per year. View the awards reported in April 2025.

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