The National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF) has responded to a letter sent by fundraising consultants urging the government to improve access to its programmes.
Joanna Jeffery and Sarah-Jane Pickering shared concerns in a letter last Friday from more than 100 sector organisations over 35 changes to the NLCF’s schemes since 2024.
In the letter to culture secretary Lisa Nandy and her department’s Lords spokesperson Baroness Twycross on Friday, the pair highlighted “unclear, late, [and] sporadic” communications to charities on changes to the application process.
Early closures, changes to eligibility criteria, short application deadlines and delayed decision-making were among other problems identified.
The changes were tracked by Jeffery’s website the List.
Jeffery and Pickering received 109 responses from recently applied organisations: 61% said it had become “more difficult” to access programmes in the last 12 months.
Some 37% of respondents said it had become “much more difficult”.
In response, a Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) spokesperson encouraged people to contribute to the July-launched National Lottery Good Causes: Fund What Matters survey which closes next Wednesday.
“The consultation remains open and we welcome all submissions,” they said.
A NLCF spokesperson added: “We welcome all feedback and use it to continually improve how we support communities and maximise our impact.
“It is vital to ensure that the good causes being funded through the generosity of National Lottery players are driven by the needs […] of people across the country.”
Allegations of exclusion
Pickering, in a LinkedIn post, said that they had repeatedly heard from people in the charity sector who wanted to share their experiences but had nowhere to go.
“As fundraisers, we were acutely aware of the changes being made to National Lottery Community Fund processes and priorities, along with the resulting frustrations,” she wrote.
In the letter, the pair stated that one of the strongest themes was an anxiety about shifting to “narrowly place-based funding”.
“Respondents felt that communities connected by disability, illness, identity, experience or shared circumstances were being deprioritised because they are dispersed geographically.”
NLCF’s Reaching Communities programme changed in June so applications can only be made from projects operating from one region of England.
Reaching Communities, which began in 2005, was heralded as “a stalwart of the sector’s fundraising infrastructure” in the letter.
“The decision to stop accepting national and multi-region applications substantially narrows the programme’s previous understanding of ‘community’,” the letter stated.
“Organisations supporting dispersed communities, such as people affected by rare diseases, may now have no route through Reaching Communities even where their need is substantial.”
Tight deadlines
The iWill Fund, which launched in October 2025, and the Million Hours Fund – which opened in August that year – were both criticised for reportedly giving charities tight deadlines and delayed decisions respectively.
In particular, the iWill Fund, a youth investment initiative, was accused of giving charities updates on expressions of interest eight weeks late.
Meanwhile, the Million Hours Fund, designed to fund extra hours of youth work, closed the application deadline early, leading to some organisations partway through an application losing out.
“Beyond Reaching Communities, some funding streams have tested the boundaries of what could reasonably be considered acceptable funder behaviour”.
A spokesperson for the NLCF added: “Our recent impact report showed we reached seven million people directly last year and awarded more than 13,000 grants.
“We know there is still more we can do and so we encourage people to keep sharing their views and stories.”
