The BIG Fund will distribute the grants from the new £100m Transition Fund that aims to help small and medium-sized charities in England weather the looming public spending cuts.

The BIG Fund is the non-lottery funding arm of the Big Lottery Fund.

The Transition Fund, which was announced by Chancellor George Osborne as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review, will open for applications at the end of this month and deliver the fund over the next 13 months, minister for civil society Nick Hurd announced today.

Hurd has already said that the fund would be available to charities and social enterprises with income of between £50,000 and £10m, that have low levels of reserves and high dependence on public funding streams that are particularly vulnerable to budget cuts.

Detailed eligibility criteria will be published shortly.

Hurd said today: “We are facing the largest peacetime deficit in our history and civil society cannot be immune from the necessary reductions in spending. The Big Society agenda will give charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises more opportunities to secure stable independent funding. But we recognise that this will not happen overnight.

“To help address this problem, we have worked quickly to open a £100m short-term fund to help charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises make the transition to becoming providers to public of services, to work with us to build a Big Society and make the most of the opportunities it will bring for them.”

Peter Wanless, chief executive of the BIG Lottery Fund, added: "BIG is delighted to be working with the Office for Civil Society in administering this hugely important fund.  We will work with them to ensure that this money helps excellent organisations throughout England prepare effectively for the future.  We will be drawing on relevant expertise from Acevo and Capacitybuilders, among others, to achieve that.”

Organisations can express an interest in the Transition Fund by emailing their contact details to [email protected]