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The Bristol Impact Fund

What the Bristol Impact Fund is

Since 2017, Bristol City Council has been using grant investment to tackle inequality across the city.

This grant programme, called the Bristol Impact Fund (BIF), brought together 8 of the council's grant funds to create a new programme.

This programme offers:

  • four-year grant funding to Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations in the city
  • two rounds of small grants for 2 years each to encourage new ideas and involvement from more diverse communities

BIF1: 2017 to 2021 and BIF 2: 2021 to 2026

The first two rounds of the Bristol Impact Fund (BIF1 and BIF2) provided grant investment to projects build the power of communities facing disadvantage and inequality in the city, and aimed to:

  • Increase resilience
  • Enable social action
  • reduce disadvantage and inequality
  • improve wellbeing

To find out more about pdf the 40 organisations that were successful in receiving BIF2 funding (231 KB) .

BIF3: One City, Many Communities, 2026 to 2030

The third round of the Bristol Impact Fund (BIF3) has a budget of £8.8 million over four years.

BIF3 will build on the foundations of BIF1 and BIF2 to prioritise investments into neighbourhood organisations and citywide equalities communities that:

  • increase the skills and knowledge held in community
  • are aiming to address community-identified priorities through co-production with the community
  • aim to tackle inequity

Applications for BIF3 Medium and Large grants open 18 March 2025 and close 10 June 2025.

Applications for small grants will open later in 2025.

Types of grants available

Medium or large grants

Applications for BIF 3 Medium and Large grants open 18 March 2025 and close 10 June 2025.

BIF3 funding will run from 2026 until 2030. Medium and large grants will run for the full 4-year funding period.

  • Medium grants between £11,000 and £55,000 per year
  • Large grants between £56,000 and £110,000 per year
  • Average grant expected to be around £55,000
  • Upper limit of £110,000 per year per organisation or £220,000 per year per partnership

Tackling hate crime and discrimination

  • Ringfenced funding of £1.4 million
  • Grants of up to £351,500 per year per partnership

Small grants 

The purpose of the small grants fund is to encourage new ideas and involvement from more diverse communities.

We will run two rounds of small grants and grants will last two years. The total amount of funding available each round will be £200,000 making a total allocation of £400,000 to small grants across the Bristol Impact Fund 3 programme.

The aim is for the first round of new small grants to start on 1 July 2026.

Individual small grants will range between £2,500 and £11,000 per year.

Apply for a grant

BIF 3

Applications for BIF3 medium and large grants are now open.

Apply online.

BIF3 is looking to fund initiatives that:

  • offer solutions to community-identified priorities
  • support social justice and community cohesion
  • build economic resilience and tackle poverty
  • promote wellbeing
  • tackle hate crime and discrimination

This is not an exhaustive list of themes, BIF3 recognises that communities are best placed to identify their own priorities and find solutions to their own challenges.

All BIF3 applications will be assessed during June to August 2025, and application decisions will be communicated in December 2025. The BIF3 grant funding period will commence 1 April 2026.

Download and read the pdf Bristol Impact Fund 3: One City, Many Communities prospectus (442 KB) .

Support with your application

We will be holding a series of online information sessions for VCSE organisations interested in applying for BIF3 funding:

  • Monday 24 March 12pm to 1:30pm
  • Tuesday 25 March 1pm to 2:30pm
  • Wednesday 26 March 3:30pm to 5pm
  • Tuesday 1 April 12pm to 1:30pm
  • Thursday 3 April 3:30pm to 5pm

We strongly advise that you attend a session if you can, to help improve the quality of your application, find out more and sign up.

Resources

These resources are here to support your application:

Baseline standards

Bristol City Council has a set of baseline standards to protect our investment in the voluntary and community sector and make sure that all council funded organisations are well managed and provide good quality services.

All Bristol Impact Funded organisations are required to meet these standards, or to work towards them within the first 6 months of the programme.

Note: the baseline standards are currently being updated. Successful organisations will need to meet the updated standards as part of the conditions of their grant agreement.

What we have funded so far

Since the launch of BIF, 70 organisations have received grants and 7,000 volunteers have been involved. BIF has funded projects that have:

  • reduced financial, food and fuel poverty
  • tackled unemployment
  • improved people's access to technology
  • enabled people to better participate in their community
  • reduced social isolation
  • improved wellbeing

To find out more about the impact of BIF, see these independent evaluations:

You can find details on projects that: 

If you any have questions, email investmentandgrants@bristol.gov.uk. 

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