Key information about the scheme

The scheme is open to organisations. These could include registered charities, limited companies, charitable incorporated organisations, community interest companies, or unincorporated groups. 

Bidding organisations are required to provide details of their organisation in the application form. If planning to work with partner organisations, applicants must outline this in the “partners” section of the application form.  

An individual cannot apply on their own behalf as all financial grants need to be made to organisations.  

If an individual has an idea and wants to put in an application, they need to align with an organisation that is willing to put in the application on their behalf, take responsibility for funding, project delivery and reporting.  

Any organisation that is not a registered charity or organisation with its own bank account is not able to receive funding. Therefore, if an organisation is in this situation and wants to put in a bid, they need to align with a partner organisation that is willing to take responsibility for the application, funding, project delivery and reporting.  

We do not accept applications from marketing, PR or advertising agencies, research bodies or market research organisations.  

The grant scheme is designed to support projects that engage with and inform Black, Asian, mixed heritage or minority ethnic or faith/belief communities. We do not look to fund research projects. 

We are not accepting applications from current staff members of NHS Blood and Transplant.

Applicants can apply for the following funding bands. Please note the restrictions associated with the highest band. 

Funds between £1 and £2,499  

Organisations looking to deliver a project focusing on blood, organ or combined projects can apply for this funding band. 

Funds between £2,500 - £10,000

Organisations looking to deliver a project focusing on blood, organ or combined projects can apply for this funding band. 

Funds between £10,001 and £20,000 

Organisations looking to deliver the following can apply within this funding band 

• A project focused on blood donation
• A project focused on both blood and organ donation

Organisations applying for funding at this band must have previous experience of working with either a government department (ministerial or non-ministerial) or a public body e.g. NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), NHS England etc. Applicants must be able to show the impact achieved through these partnerships. 

Funds of £20,000 (set amount)

The Community Engagement Leads initiative will allocate set grants of £20,000 to organisations that can create grassroots networks to promote stem cell donation in partnership with NHSBT and Anthony Nolan.  

Organisations applying for funding at this band must have previous experience of working with either a government department (ministerial or non-ministerial) or a public body e.g. NHSBT, NHS England etc. Applicants must be able to show the impact achieved through these partnerships.

Additional information

Please note that all activity around blood donation must be aimed at the Black African and Black Caribbean communities and must be carried out in England. 

Please also note that your budget outline should be inclusive of unrecoverable VAT.  

Bidders can make one application to each band of funding if they wish (including the Community Engagement Leads initiative), but only one application per organisation will be approved. This is to ensure organisations have the best chance of receiving funding. 

Applicants should also make clear in their application if they are applying for money from any other sources e.g. match funding, and should think carefully about the areas that they are requesting funding for, as these grants are funded by taxpayers. For example, we could not pay fees to artists/influencers or celebrities to endorse organ donation or fund international travel. Any travel costs for people to attend events would need to be standard class travel. 

If applicants intend to use funds to employ a post or contribute towards staffing costs, NHSBT will not undertake any employment liability for these posts. All liability remains with the applying organisation.

Stem cell donation

We will be accepting applications for £20,000 set amount from lead organisations focusing on stem cell donation. We will only be funding applications focusing on Pakistani communities in Birmingham and Bradford.

The focus of the proposed projects must to be one of the following: 

Deceased organ donation  

We encourage applications from all ethnic minority communities to raise awareness of, and participation in deceased donation. Other forms of organ donation may be referenced in applications, but the focus must be on deceased organ donation.

Blood donation  

Due to clinical need, we only fund applications for projects focusing on the Black African and/or Black Caribbean communities.

A combination of organ and blood donation 

We accept applications jointly covering deceased organ donation and blood donation from all ethnic minority communities, but the blood element of any project must focus on engaging the Black African and/or the Black Caribbean communities and must be carried out in England. 

Stem cell donation

We encourage applications to our Community Engagement Lead fund from organisations focusing on raising awareness of and participation in stem cell donation amongst Pakistani communities in Birmingham and Bradford, in partnership with Anthony Nolan.

Yes, providing activity focused on blood donation engages Black Caribbean and/or Black African communities, and is carried out in England. 

Organ donation activity can be based in England or Wales, and can focus on any Black, Asian, mixed heritage or ethnic minority communities. 

There are three timescale options in this round of funding: 

• 1 April 2022 - 31 December 2022 (9 months) 
• 1 April 2022 - 1 April 2023 (1 year) 
• 1 April 2022 - 1 Oct 2023 (1.5 years) 

All projects need to be completed by 1 October 2023. All applicants must lay out the timeframes of their proposed project in the application form.  

This is not required for those applying for Community Engagement Leads funding, as this application form does not include a project proposal. 

The scheme does not fund activity retrospectively e.g. if an event that falls outside the timescales of the scheme. Activity needs to be completed within the project’s chosen timescale, beginning no earlier than 1 April 2022. 

NHS Blood and Transplant has a range of existing materials, both physical and digital, to support organisations raising awareness and driving donation in the community. These include:    

• The blood donation YouTube channel 
• The organ donation YouTube channel 
• Leaflets in a range of languages 
• Promotional materials including Tshirts, posters, banners, keyrings, pin badges and more 
• Anthony Nolan website for stem cell related projects
• Anthony Nolan YouTube channel for stem cell related projects

Organ donation

There is information on our organ donation website about organ donation and faith/ethnicity, and also a number of statistical reports relating to organ donation and transplantation in Black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities  

For example: 

The role of ethnicity in organ donation 

Faith and beliefs in organ donation 

Transplant Activity report – BAME supplementary report

Agroni Research 2019 – attitudes to organ donation in Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities (Powerpoint 2.6MB) 

Information about the change in the law around organ donation in England 

Blood donation

Our blood donation website contains information around the need for Black African and Black Caribbean donors, including information about Ro donors and sickle cell:

Why more Black donors are needed

The Ro subtype and its role in blood donation 

Information about sickle cell 

Stem cell donation

The Anthony Nolan website provides information on stem cell donation and joining their stem cell register. Use these links to find out more.

Blood cancers and blood disorders

Understanding stem cell transplants

Joining the Anthony Nolan stem cell register

Stem cell facts and stats

Stem cell FAQs

Engaging celebrities, VIPs and influencers can be a fantastic way of amplifying the vital work that you do, but involving highly influential people with that work also presents a unique set of risks and challenges.

Please ensure you that you read our celebrity and VIP safeguarding guidelines (PDF 151KB).

All applicants need to acknowledge in the relevant section of the application form that they have read, understood and commit to follow these guidelines.  

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), agreed upon by the European Parliament and Council in April 2016, and replaced the Data Protection Directive 95/46/etc in Spring 2018.

It is the primary law regulating how companies protect EU citizens' personal data and refers to collection, usage, storage, and destruction of that data.

Download these documents to find out more:

• Criteria for blood, organs and combined projects (PDF 179KB)
• Criteria for Community Engagement Lead stem cell projects (PDF 186KB)

The judging panel is comprised of key stakeholders in the organ, blood and stem cell donation communities.

These may include:

• a family/patient with first-hand experience of organ donation
• staff at NHS Blood and Transplant and Anthony Nolan
• clinicians and nurses involved in organ donation and transplantation
• a representative from the Department of Health and Social Care
• a representative from the Welsh Government
• a representative from the National BAME Transplant Alliance

Members of the judging panel must declare conflicts of interest and will not provide scores on applications where this is declared.  

We hope to notify applicants of funding decisions in early February 2022. However, if we are awaiting answers to clarification questions from projects, some decisions may be delayed.  

We know that funding applications take time to put together, so we are happy to provide brief feedback on why applications have been unsuccessful.

This will be included in the letter you will receive if you have been unsuccessful.

Funding will be released between late February and early March, depending on the procurement process and the completion of documentation by project leads. 

Successful applicants will be expected to sign a Letter of Agreement prior to the release of funding. Depending on the size and length of the projects, the funds may be released by NHS Blood and Transplant on a phased basis. The phasing will be confirmed with each organisation being funded for the work. 

The funded organisation will be required to maintain records of expenditure e.g. invoices, and NHS Blood and Transplant reserves the right to have its auditors investigate that the funded activity has/is being done. 

NHS Blood and Transplant reserves the right to ask for and receive funds to be returned in the case that the agreed activity has not been undertaken (partially or at all).  

All applications should provide clear information about the number of people they expect to engage through their project and how they will evaluate the impact of this engagement.   

Organisations will be required to provide regular monitoring reports measuring activity against objectives and showing expenditure. 

Final evaluation reports will need to be provided to NHS Blood and Transplant within 8 weeks of your chosen completion date, as specified in your application form. 

All organisations receiving funding will be expected to evaluate their project in line with the Government Communication Service’s Evaluation Model. This means being able to outline:  

• what you have done (inputs) 
• outputs in terms of what has been delivered (numbers of people reached etc)
• outtakes in terms of any measures around attitudes or engagement levels, or measurement of people’s stated intention to act
• outcomes – number of decisions recorded etc  

You can refer to this example of the final evaluation form (PDF 196KB) used in the second round of the scheme.

Read tips on measuring an organ donation campaign