DPO Capacity Building Access Fund

Disabled People’s Organisation Capacity Building Access Fund

The Disability LIB Access fund offers small grants to increase access for DPOs to capacity building events and activities.

What is covered?

If you would like to attend a conference, workshop, or training that would help your organisations work better,  you can apply for a small grant from Disability LIB Access Fund to help cover your costs.  This includes:

• Admission fees, transport costs if you’d like to go to a conference or event that might benefit your organisation,
• Costs of accessing general training courses,
• Costs of organising events, which could help a DPO network with different stakeholders in their community. For example launch of a new DPO. 
• Costs of training and supporting volunteers.
• We will contribute to costs of organising in house training for your management board, staff or volunteers which could build capacity of your organisation, 

We will also cover costs associated with access in getting capacity building support, however, we will not cover expenses which result from obligations of other stakeholders under DDA.  For example, if an organisation is organising a training and you need BSL interpreter, they have to provide it under DDA, but if you need your PA to attend, Access Fund can cover transport costs for PA.

Who is eligible?

In order to be eligible for support from Disability LIB Access Fund you have to be:

1. A Disabled Peoples Organisation in England,
2. Have annual income less than £60,000  

Preference will be given DPOs with small incomes.

A disabled people’s organisation (DPO) is “an organisation that has a membership and managing board with a majority of disabled people, and whose objectives are the rights and equality of disabled people.”

How it works?

If you know a programme or event that you would like to visit and have an idea of what additional costs your organisation might acquire, you can apply for funding from Disability LIB Access Fund. 

Step 1: 

Complete and send us back your application form.  You can download the form here.  If you have difficulties filling in this form, please call us and we will assist you.  You should answer all questions carefully.  Remember, we need to receive your completed application at list one month before the date of event/programme.  Disability LIB established guidelines for costs of PA/support workers, BSL interpreters, mileage and transport costs.  In assessing your application we will refer to these guidelines.  You can download our guidance  here.

Step 2: 

All applications for funding will be checked by Disability LIB team and will be presented to the Project Steering Group.  We will send you a confirmation letter by e-mail if your application is successful.   This letter will confirm amounts granted, name and date of event/program.

Step 3: 

Go to event/programme.

Step 4: 

Write a small report about the event or programme and how it helped you.  Send this report together with invoice and documents proving your expenses to us.  You can download a template for report here.