Get involved

Bring People Together:

Creating opportunities to collaborate and share culture, or support local health and wellbeing, both physical and mental, through activities such as:

• inter-generational arts or heritage projects, co-design and creation of public artworks or cultural activities that celebrate the diverse communities of London
• dance classes for older people, sewing workshops for vulnerable women, setting up a community choir or poetry writing for mental health service users

Improve Public Spaces:

Bringing unused spaces and routes to life, make streets safer healthier and more sociable, or improve access and quality of local green spaces such as:

• installing locally distinctive lighting, furniture, greening, or public art
• developing new or improved walking routes, or installing outdoor seating or spill-out space
• delivering new local green spaces such as shared gardens, orchards or pocket parks

Support Community Hubs and High Streets:

Creating, expanding or improving shared or open-access community spaces that support social integration, build skills or enable shared ownership of community assets such as:

• testing innovative new uses for vacant and underused spaces around high streets
• delivering shared workshops, community kitchens or tool libraries
• creating or adapting neighbourhood workspaces to promote a healthy work/life balance or a mix of uses to support high street economies

We encourage projects which adopt the following principles:

• Respond to a local challenge or opportunity in a creative way
• Represent local interests and priorities
• Involve local people in planning and designing the project
• Give local people lasting skills and opportunities
• Celebrate and strengthen the special character of your area
• Make everyone in the community feel welcome and involved
• Be environmentally sustainable

Anyone can take part in Make London. However, to be eligible for a pledge from the Mayor, you must:

• be a community group, mutual aid or volunteer network, charity, TRA, Town Team or Social Enterprise – or individual representing a wider interest group. Tier 1 is open to individuals and organisations with a turnover of less than £50,000, and individuals may apply to Tier 1 only.
• be able to provide a letter of reference from a recognised, legal organisation in the local area who can vouch for you and your project if you are an individual or informal group
• be able to demonstrate wider backing from local people - whether through membership, donations, ‘likes,’ social media activity and/or letters of support
• be able to enter into legal contracts with the Greater London Authority and have a bank account. We can fund groups operating under a range of legal structures including registered charities, unincorporated associations (although one or more members may need to be named and liable for the contract), community interest companies and co-operative or community benefit societies.
• individuals representing groups must be willing to undergo a credit check

For Tier 2 (Pledges of up to £50K) you must:

• be a constituted community group, charity, TRA, Town Team or Social Enterprise – we can’t fund individuals at this tier
• demonstrate clear and representative governance arrangements (your mission statement, who you represent, how you conduct yourselves and your membership, key roles and responsibilities etc.)
• be able to enter into legal contracts with the Greater London Authority and have an organisation bank account. We can fund groups operating under a range of legal structures including registered charities, unincorporated associations (although one or more members may need to be named and liable for the contract), community interest companies and co-operative or community benefit societies.

Complete the self-assessment tool and check if your project has the key elements in place in order to be eligible for this programme.

You should think carefully about what you might require in the future and use our Community Projects Handbook and other online resources to help you get started.  

To be considered for a pledge from the Mayor, you will need to create and launch your idea using the Spacehive platform.

Spacehive is a civic crowdfunding platform working with us on Make London. They make it easy to share your project idea online and then begin a crowdfunding campaign to collect donations of cash, skills and local backing.

Tier 1

• We can fund the full cost of your project up to a maximum of £5,000.
• You should be able to demonstrate local support – either by capturing donations, ‘likes’ or uploading letters of support. Donations can be as little as £1.
• You can use Spacehive to run a crowdfunding campaign and capture donations to the project from local people and organisations, though match funding is not a requirement at this level.

Tier 2

• We can pledge up to 75% maximum of total project costs, up to £50,000 maximum, so you’ll need to raise at least 25% from the rest of the ‘crowd’ – people, businesses, public funders and so on.
• The Mayor is not able to support all projects at that scale, so you need to think carefully about your budget and what could be achievable when pitching your project as a campaign.

2020

• December – Launch of Make London and virtual events programme. Complete the self-assessment tool and check if your project has the key elements in place in order to be eligible for this programme. You should start planning your project and building local support as soon as possible. We've prepared some resources to help you plan.
• Attend one of our upcoming virtual drop-in sessions where you will be able to find out more about the programme:
  
  • 9th December - register
  • 15th December - register
  • 17th December - register
    
• 21st December – Those interested in receiving additional support to strengthen their project idea for the Make London application can request for additional support through this form.

2021

• 28th January – Deadline to create a project page on Spacehive. We will then Verify your pitch. You can't begin your crowdfunding campaign until your project has been checked and approved. 
• mid-February – Groups must have started a crowdfunding campaign by this date. (Tier 2 requirement).
• February - March – We will assess your crowdfunding campaigns. You should have plenty of engagement and aim for 20 backers for Tier 1 by this point or secure 30 backers for Tier 2 by this point.
• mid-March – Mayoral Pledges announced.
• 11th May – Crowdfunding campaigns to end. 
• May - June – Contracts in place, up front payments released.

There are four areas we will use to decide which projects to fund. Here are some areas we look at when appraising projects and deciding what to support:

1. Project Description (40%)

We are really interested in the creativity and practicality of your idea and how it seeks to aide recovery from COVID-19 by responding to challenges or opportunities in your neighbourhood.

Some considerations to strengthen your pitch are:

• clearly explain how the project contributes to local recovery efforts
• be clear about what you want to achieve or change both in the short and long term
• explain why your planned activities are the best way to make this happen
• describe a range of ways that local people have been involved in planning the project and how they will benefit
• be locally specific – is unique to your area, community and context, referencing local communities, networks, spaces and other resources it complements or builds on

2. Project Plan/Delivery (20%)

You need to show us that you can complete the project successfully if funded. Show us you have a plan and the right kind skills and experience. Make sure you’ve got the permissions you need. If things are uncertain, that’s ok, as long as you say so and explain how you will manage these things to ensure success. 

Some considerations to strengthen your pitch:

• What are the different roles, experience and skills needed to bring your idea to life?
• What networks will you be using and working with to make your project a success?
• Does it involve an element of capital build or refurbishment? If so, you’ll need to tell us who will manage this process, and demonstrate they have the right experience.
• How have you created your budget and how does it represent value for money?
• Make it clear that you’re aware of local planning requirements and whether you require planning permission.
• Demonstrate that you have permission to use the space you’re proposing to use/refurbish/occupy or otherwise host the project in?
• Explain, where relevant, that you’ve considered ongoing costs or overheads, and how these are likely to be met (eg if ongoing operations are part of the plan).

3. What are the long-term benefits? (20%)

The Mayor's pledge must be spent wisely and fairly, it is public money after all. We need you to show excellent value for money. Consider the lasting effects your project will have, or how to maintain it. The best ideas will create a local legacy, grow into something bigger or support other things happening in your area. Consider how many new users, trainees, jobs, volunteer hours, greenspace, discounted space, or other benefits your project ultimately delivers and how you can communicate this to us upfront.

Some considerations to strengthen your pitch:

• Be clear about what the project offers to the local area and people living/working there.
• How will it help Londoners recover from COVID-19 and improve community resilience in the future?
• How will your project be genuinely welcoming to people from different backgrounds?
• Describe how people are invited to be part of the project.
• If this is a ‘test project’ – what are you looking to test, and what might the permanent/long-term version be?
• What does success look like to you and your group?
• Describe how you will show us it is working.
• What will you measure or observe to demonstrate the impact your project has made?

4. Strength of support (20%)

How much local support do you have? 

Support is not necessarily the number of financial pledges you raise, but how many people support your project. We will look at the number of backers your campaign has, through likes, comments and letters of support, and at Tier 2, the number of financial pledges your campaign attracts. Show us that your local community are behind you. The best way to do that is to ensure everyone backing your campaign makes it clear who they are, where they are from and why they support you. 

Alongside these scored criteria we’ll be reviewing all applications to ensure a fair balance of geographical spread, and recovery needs are met.

We will not fund:

• Projects not in Greater London.
• Projects not proposed by individuals or groups representative of a local area.
• Ideas that could be equally applicable anywhere (such as Christmas lights) or those that are not place and/or community-based
• Existing pan-London or national programmes, or local services (such as those under pressure from constraints to public spending).
• 'Business as usual' activity (such as normal maintenance or repairs for an existing project).
• Projects seeking revenue to plug emergency gaps for day-to-day operations.
• Projects without a clear plan or costs in place.
• Your business idea. This is not a business incubation fund. However, we will consider funding social enterprises responding to a local issue that clearly provides an evidenced benefit to local people and where there is an obvious need for public investment. We will want to see a full business model and understand how your project continues to build both capacity and opportunities for the local community.