Influencing grants

We want to work with influencing partners in every part of the UK to develop a shared strategy for transforming access to justice in the immigration system.

‘Access to justice’ means people’s ability to secure their immigration rights and move forward with their lives. This encompasses dismantling systemic barriers and simplifying laws as well as provision of timely, high quality, affordable legal advice.

We are interested in a wide range of approaches by different types of organisations towards achieving these change goals:

  1. A fair, timely and accessible immigration system. 
  2. A more sustainably resourced immigration advice and legal system. 

We expect to make 10-15 influencing grants in total over 2021-22. We anticipate making grants in the range of £90,000 – £200,000 for individual applications and £200,000 – £500,000 for multiple organisation partnerships/collaborations, for up to three years funding. For each region the available budget is £500,000, therefore realistically we would only be able to fund one partnership application per region to a total of £500,000. 

Please see our awarded grant partners page for descriptions of awarded grants from previous rounds.

What do we mean by influencing

By ‘influencing’ we mean work that is focused on changing systems or structures. The target may be local or national government, statutory agencies, legal services and/or the public. It may be focused on changing draft legislation, regulations or guidance, government practice, public opinion and/or to improve the quality of advice and representation.

We recognise there are many different ways to change the world. We want to fund a range of approaches to transforming the immigration system, but with an emphasis on people with lived experience leading the change.

Some examples of what we might fund include:

  • Community lawyering, which builds power and develops leadership of those with lived experience of the immigration system and where priority and direction for legal work are set by people with lived experience rather than directed by lawyers or policy professionals removed from the direct experience.
  • Community organising that is led, developed and delivered by people with lived and learned experience of the immigration system and/or which coordinate with movement lawyering strategies.
  • Strategic legal action including pre litigation research, interventions and implementation of wins in the courts.
  • Strategic communications that build public support to ensure a fair and lawful functioning of the immigration system.
  • Policy and public affairs work including with local authorities, parliaments and assemblies, the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, Department of Justice, Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, the Legal Aid Agency, Scottish Legal Aid Board and the Legal Services Agency Northern Ireland.
  • Development and embedding of anti-racism within organisations and influencing strategies.
  • Analysis and research to increase knowledge and understanding of barriers to justice in the immigration system and to identify solutions.
  • Alliance building between national organisations, advice providers and grassroots groups including to track emerging patterns, identify areas for system change and use evidence from legal casework to develop influencing work.
  • Influencing work that targets local council, local MPs, metro mayors, regional bodies and legal services, including to increase local funding for immigration legal advice. 

We particularly welcomed applications from organisations that are led and/or informed by people with lived and learned experience of the UK immigration system.

Local Influencing grants

Funding was available for local influencing partners who focus on local, regional or national change.

National Influencing grants

Funding was available for influencing partners who focus on change across the UK and/or devolved nations.

What we will not fund

  • Work that operates in isolation from other stakeholders within the area. 
  • Work that does not contribute to Justice Together’s change goals.
  • Work whose main focus is influencing around access to or provision of housing, healthcare, destitution, the right to work or challenges to the existence of detention or conditions in detention. We will consider applications that focus on influencing around access to legal advice in detention.
  • Specific pieces of litigation work.
  • Work that is not legally charitable including work that falls outside the Charity Commission guidance on campaigning.