Frequently asked questions

The programme 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 needed to 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 programme 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 do not accept applications from current staff members of NHS Blood and Transplant.

The focus of the proposed projects must 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 deceased 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. 

Living kidney donation

We encourage applications from all minority ethnic communities to raise awareness of, and participation in living kidney donation.

Applicants can apply for the following funding bands.

Funds between £1 and £2,499  

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

Funds between £2,500 - £10,000

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

Funds between £10,001 and £20,000 

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

Projects focused only on deceased organ donation cannot apply for this funding band.

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. 

Additional information

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.  

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. 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.

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

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

All projects for the new funding round will be 12 month projects, running from April 2023 to April 2024.

All applicants must lay out the timeframes of their proposed project in the application form.

The scheme does not fund activity retrospectively, for example if an event falls outside the timescales of the scheme. Activity needs to be completed within the project’s chosen timescale, beginning no earlier than 1 April 2023.

Projects can be given small extensions due to unforeseen circumstances, subject to NHS Blood and Transplant's discretion.

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 
• Transplant TV for living kidney donation
• Living kidney donation fact sheets

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 

For information about living kidney donation:

Donating your kidney

What is living kidney donation?

Living with one kidney

Practical and cultural considerations

Living kidney donation fact sheets

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 

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.  

A current Community Investment Scheme round 4 or Living Kidney Transplant Scheme funded organisation can apply for funding.

However, organisations should prioritise their current funded work and consider their timelines and any delays, impact, and their monitoring and evaluation consistency.

These will be considered by the sifting and judging panels.

Blood focused projects should focus on driving registrations and not mobile blood donation sessions.

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 this document to find out more:

• Project criteria for England and Wales (PDF 166KB)

The judging panel is comprised of key stakeholders in the organ and blood 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.  

All applicants for the last round of funding have now been notified of the outcome of their application.

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 in late 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 and issue an invoice prior to the release of funding. 

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 

Projects will have the opportunity to apply for ‘investment funding’ to deepen or scale the work undertaken in the initial funding period.

This will allow for a multi-year approach to build upon the success of the project, subject to funding and successful investment funding application.