The Community Grant Programme is run by the National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) business. They own and maintain the high-voltage electricity transmission network in England and Wales. The programme is aimed at community organisations and charities in areas where their work is impacting local people through their operations and construction activities.
Communities impacted by the maintenance of existing infrastructure (eg refurbishment of overhead lines or substations resulting in road closures and other impacts) can apply for grants of up to £10,000.
Communities impacted by construction work for new infrastructure projects (eg the building of new underground tunnels or a new substation resulting in a significant increase in heavy goods traffic, noise and other impacts) can apply for grants of up to £20,000.
They support projects in the following areas:
Social benefits
- Initiatives that support hard-to-reach members of the community improving diversity and inclusion.
- Initiatives that support community safety – from electricity safety to protecting at-risk members of society including the elderly and those with special needs.
- Initiatives which achieve improved educational attainment through building confidence and self-esteem of children and young people.
- Education projects especially those that upskill young people with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) skills.
- Activities that promote or support health and wellbeing in the local community, for example addressing energy efficiency.
Economic benefits
- Initiatives that support employment either through a work placement or retraining schemes which increase the employability of people from lower income communities back into the workplace.
- Initiatives that support capacity building for community, charity or voluntary groups to help them improve their services, whether it be reaching more users or extending the hours that the service is available.
Environmental benefits
- Initiatives such as conservation projects that have a direct and positive environmental impact or awareness raising projects that improve environmental behaviour or understanding from recycling to water resource management.
- Improvement of the energy efficiency of community facilities.
- Initiatives which help people to manage their energy usage and access affordable tariffs.
They accept applications quarterly.