Financial Support
Financial Support
We are open every Tuesday morning 9-12 in St Mary’s Catholic Church Hall. Free pre-loved clothing to aid our local surrounding community and help out others who may be in need of a helping hand. It is also an opportunity to live more sustainably by re-using, recycling and rehoming outgrown clothing. Our aim is to rehome all the generous donations of clothes that we have received, approximately 1200 items every week. Clothes donations always welcomed.
We are an environmental project focused on keeping good food from waste. We provide free fresh fruit and veg, and other food items that we collect daily from surplus (unsold) stock at the shops. Food types and amounts vary daily, we do not require registration, you do not need to be in need.
HOW TO GET HELP – Alton foodbank can help those in need in Alton and surrounding villages. If you need help from our foodbank there are a few simple steps to follow. THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP IS TO GET A FOODBANK VOUCHER. Agencies who can refer you include: Citizens Advice, housing support officers, children’s centres, health visitors, social services and some local charities.
Join a friendly community and gain skills to step confidently into employment.
CAP’s Money Coaching has been specifically designed to help people transform the way they approach money, it has helped thousands of participants to build a successful budget, keep track of what they spend and to save regularly.
If you are in financial crisis please call 0808 2082138 for free (open Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm) to talk confidentially with a trained Citizens Advice adviser. They can help address your crises and provide support to maximise your income, help you navigate the benefits system, and identify any additional grants you could be entitled to. If needed, they’ll issue you with a voucher so you can get an emergency food parcel from your local food bank.
CAP’s free Debt Help service has helped release around 25,000 people who were in unmanageable debt. Our local Debt Coaches visit each person or couple in their own home; CAP recommends a route out of debt, negotiates with creditors, manages a debt repayment plan, and local volunteers support each person until they are debt-free. To take your first step out of debt, call our friendly New Enquiries team to arrange your first home appointment.
The connect4communities programme operates in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. It is funded by grants from the Department for Work and Pensions Household Support Fund and the Department for Education Holiday Activities and Food. Our programme aims to support those most in need with significantly rising living costs, particularly families with children and pensioners who would otherwise struggle with energy, food and water bills.
Many people are currently struggling with the rising cost of living. The things that are causing pressure on household finances will vary, depending on your personal situation. This section pulls together support from a range of sources, which we hope will help you during this difficult time.
The ongoing struggle with the cost of living poses a significant challenge for many Hampshire residents who are having to make difficult choices regarding their household finances. Help and support is available from a number of services. This includes warm spaces in libraries to hot school meals and expert advice on reducing heating bills. We encourage everyone in Hampshire to take full advantage of these resources.
Many people are currently struggling with the rising cost of living. The things that are causing pressure on household finances will vary, depending on your personal situation. This section pulls together support from a range of sources, which we hope will help you during this difficult time.
If you find yourself in a situation where you are homeless immediately, please call the offices on 01730 234415 between the hours of 9am-5pm when an initial assessment of your needs can be completed over the phone. An out of hours service for emergency cases is available outside of these hours. In this instance, please call 07850 358156.
Energy Alton volunteers can carry out a free energy efficiency survey of your home to identify how it could be improved so that it loses less heat – we look at insulation, draught proofing, windows, lighting and more. The visit lasts about an hour and we follow up with a written report, with a range of suggestions – plus links to more information. We also offer a small grants scheme that provides a grant for 50% of the cost of any energy efficiency measures installed in your home, after our survey, up to a maximum of £100. To be eligible for the grant, you need to have had a home energy survey carried out by one of our volunteer Energy Champions and your home must be in a council tax band of A, B, C or D. We do not represent any commercial interest and we are not selling anything. To book a survey, use our website contact form, email us at info@energyalton.org.uk or call us on 07811 462 659. Please note – our surveys and reports are carried out by experienced volunteers with some training, but they are not qualified professionals. Please obtain professional advice before undertaking any major alterations to your building’s fabric.
We accept referrals from various professional and non-profit organisations, from military charities (Forgotten Veterans, SSAFA, Help for Heroes), local authorities, Citizen’s Advice, and many others. Before applying directly to us, you might want to consider if you or your referee are eligible for help from The Tantum Trust. To make an application to Furniture Helpline’s Referral Scheme, please email us at help@fhl.org.uk
Help with eligibility, appeals, tax credits and Universal Credit. Use the benefits tool to find out what support you might be able to get to help with your living costs. You can get benefits and other financial support if you’re eligible.
Hampshire Home Choice is a sub-regional choice based lettings scheme managed by East Hampshire District Council in partnership with other local authorities. Hampshire Home Choice is a way of looking for social housing available for rent across the Hampshire Home Choice sub-region and aims to give applicants a choice in deciding where they wish to live.
Grants and Funding Opportunities
ALTON & DISTRICT COMMUNITY RELIEF FOUNDATION (CIO) is a charity which supports local individuals and families in time of need with grants for goods or services.
Alton Lions Club (CIO) will consider applications for grants from local charities, communities, organisations, authorities and agencies and from individuals in need and will generally give priority to those within the Club’s operating area. Details of our grant making policy are here: https://altonlions.org.uk/services/grant-making-policy/
Alton Town Council awards grants to organisations each year. The sum involved is set by the Council during its usual budget process. The grants are to assist local organisations and clubs with projects or costs. Grants are divided into two categories, termed Community Grants and Event & Project Grants. Please click on ‘Grants Policy’ to find out more information and then the ‘Grant Application Form’ to apply for funding.
Developers pay this levy to the Charging Authority (East Hampshire District Council) who pass 25% of CIL receipts to the Town Council, this is known as the Neighbourhood Portion. This needs to be spent on locally determined infrastructure in areas where development takes place. Please click on ‘Neighbourhood CIL Policy’ to find out more information and then the ‘Neighbourhood CIL Application’ to apply for funding.
We invest money from Government and the National Lottery to support creativity and culture across England so that everyone, wherever they live can lead a happy, healthy and creative life. We’re looking for organisations, artists, events, initiatives and others to apply for our funding and help us achieve our strategy, Let’s Create.
Connecting projects, charities and causes with people and partnerships who care.
East Hampshire District Council is committed to supporting charities, voluntary and community organisations within the district by providing grants and funding to support their work.
List of grants and funding available from Hampshire County Council
Funding support offered by Hampshire Forest Partnership. We’ve launched several funding support schemes which are now open for applications, so if you’re a local resident, parish councillor, business, teacher, landowner, land manager or farmer with land that’d be perfect for tree planting, we’d love to hear from you.
Our focus is to support smaller, grassroots organisations across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Generally, we make grants of between £250 and £5,000. HIWCF’s grant making priorities are underpinned by the need to tackle poverty and inequality and to support work that is important to local communities.
The National Lottery Community Fund distributes over £600m a year to communities across the UK, raised by players of The National Lottery
We’re here to invest in sport and physical activity to make it a normal part of life for everyone in England, regardless of who you are. Each year we invest more than £250 million of National Lottery and public money to help people play sport and take part in physical activity. We know that applying to one of our funds for the first time can seem a little daunting, but here we’ll guide you to the appropriate fund and explain exactly what you need to do.
We believe the best ideas often come from the people who know and live in our communities. And we’re committed to supporting and investing in our communities. Which is why we have a £90,000 Community Fund available to help make your community a better place to live. You can apply for up to £3,000 to support a project in one of our communities across the south of England. We know that the rising cost of living is having a big impact on our customers and communities, which is why we’re prioritising projects that focus on this type of support.
Although our applications are open to all support services, voluntary organisations, community groups, small charities and not for profit organisations our panel will give priority funding to applicants that are able to very clearly evidence how they are linked in with Abri and can evidence that they will be able to successfully engage with a significant proportion of Abri residents (ideally 50% of all engaged in that project/initiative). Similarly, our community fund is primarily designed to support organisations working in our community investment zones. These are: Whitehill & Bordon, Mansbridge (Southampton), Chapel (Southampton), Longhedge (Salisbury), Clewer & Dedworth, Preistwood (Bracknell), Great Hollands (Bracknell), Longwood Park (Slough), Yeovil, Chard, Bridgewater, Littlemoor (Weymouth), Bristol. We do consider applications outside of this criteria, however we cannot guarantee this.
