About
Good things happen when communities have the power, resources and confidence to shape their own future.
We're a place-based funder and investor working alongside residents to make sure our money goes where it can create the biggest impact for local communities. Together with local people we invest in local ideas, enterprises, and assets.
Because the people who are affected by funding and investment decisions should be involved in making them.
Why we exist:
It’s all about local people.
Residents help design our funds, decide where investments are made and shape the programmes we run. We simply create the conditions for local people to come together and make decisions about how to invest in Barking and Dagenham.
Day-to-day we take an exploratory approach to participatory grantmaking and investments, we’re always looking to learn and innovate so we continuously improve our approach to resident-led decision making. We’re sharing power - from governance to grants - which isn’t always easy. It can take time, sometimes it's messy but we know better decisions come from working with communities.
What local power
looks like
Local people decide how millions of pounds are invested in Barking and Dagenham.
Local businesses and social enterprises access funding, support and investment.
Residents decide how community spaces and assets should be developed and used.
Partnerships, networks and collaboration strengthen the borough's social infrastructure.
Our story so far
July 2026
£1.8 million will bring resident's vision for a Creative Hub for young people to life as part of Spaces+Places programme
October 2025
Disruptive Explorers Feast for our Future event is our biggest resident event so far
January 2025
Launched Spaces+Places, an ambitious project where local people decide how to invest £1 million in community space in Barking and Dagenham
February 2023
Launched the GROW Fund and support for local entrepreneurs
May 2020
The new charity distributed its first funds during the COVID 19 pandemic
July 2020
Barking & Dagenham Giving merged with BD Renew to form an independent charity
October 2019
Barking & Dagenham Council started a 'place-based giving' pilot
FAQs
- Any work taking place outside of Barking and Dagenham.
- Any work which goes against the core values of Barking & Dagenham Giving (Collaboration, Inclusivity, and Sustainability) or our charitable purpose.
- Any work which promotes specific political parties or are aimed at carrying out specifically religious activities.
- Activities already delivered, or normally covered, by statutory services.
- Is the application about Barking and Dagenham? You would be surprised.
- Have all the questions been answered fully? This does not need to mean it has to be a long answer – our shortest successful application was about 100 words long because the idea was fully expressed.
- Have all the questions been answered clearly? While we won’t judge anyone’s spelling or grammar, our decision-makers do need to be able to understand what they are being asked to fund – ask someone you trust to read through your application beforehand.
- Does the project fit in with core values of the charity? These are Collaboration, Inclusivity, and Sustainability – we think these are broad enough to not be restrictive.
Our experience with community-led funding over the last 18 months has taught us a lot. At the start, we let our decision-makers see every application that came in. They found the experience to be very tiring and often frustrating, with applications that made no mention of the borough or used a lot of jargon without saying what they would do. The feedback from them was that they expected us to do preliminary checks so that they don’t feel their time has been wasted. Remember, even though they are paid for their time, it’s not their full-time job! We have to carefully manage their workload so that they can give applications the attention they deserve.
Yes, but we may need to carry out additional checks or ask you to partner with a registered organisation.
We do not currently give individual grants that only benefit the individual.
Unfortunately, this is not something we are able to do.
Since our work is participatory, meaning all decisions are made by residents, we cannot respond quickly to requests for money.
No.
In order to keep things fair for all applicants, only those applications received during an application window are eligible for assessment.
When we award grants, you will also receive two phone calls: firstly, when we make the grant award to congratulate you; and secondly, to verify your bank account details before we make any payment.
We will only ever contact you from an email address ending in “@bdgiving.org.uk”. If you are unsure about an email from us, please use the contact form on the website to get in touch directly.
Yes, if it saves you time and helps you explain your idea better. But please remember that our decision-making is done by residents. Your application needs to make sense to someone who is unfamiliar with your work, and should sound like you!
Everything you submit will be taken as an accurate and honest statement of your work. As with all applications, if we have queries during the due diligence process, the burden of proof will be on you.
This means that if we later discover that your application says something which is not accurate or honest, it would not be acceptable to blame AI for misleading us.
We're a place-based funder and investor working alongside residents to make sure our money goes where it can create the biggest impact for local communities. Together with local people we invest in local ideas, enterprises, and assets.
Residents participate in all of our funding decisions. They help design funds, decide where investments and grants are made and shape the programmes we run.
The funding and support available changes throughout the year. The best way to understand what you can get involved in is to browse the Latest News section and sign up to our newsletter for regular updates.
Place-based giving is local people coming together, listening to each other and taking action to improve Barking and Dagenham for everyone.
We’re not tied to one cause or neighbourhood. Local people decide what matters - we raise money and support those ideas to make Barking and Dagenham better for every community.
PGM is a funding approach that shifts decision-making power from traditional foundations and grantmakers directly to the communities and individuals affected by the funding. In our case that means, residents decide what we fund and how we invest.
Like every charity, BD Giving has a board of trustees who are legally responsible for the charity and a staff team who plan and deliver our work. What makes BD Giving different is that residents are always involved in our decisions. In addition to participating in programmes and receiving funds, they help design funds, decide where investments are made and shape the programmes we run.
Community-led investing means that our investment priorities are set by, and investment decisions are made by, residents who reflect the demographics and lived experiences of local people. They ensure that what local people want and need remains the priority of our investments.
Our money comes from a number of sources: a transfer of Section 106 community infrastructure levy money to set up an endowment fund; other grantmaking organisations such as trusts and foundations; commissioning contracts; and revenue from investments that BD Giving has in the borough, and elsewhere.
That it has an impact way beyond the decision they make. Our decision-makers have used the experience and skills they have developed with us to take up positions of leadership in the community as trustees, school governors, business owners, grantees, and much more.
You can read more about the impact of our participatory approach in our published reports and across our social media channels.
There are several ways to get involved. Funders and investors can support us directly as a charity, putting your investment straight to work across Barking and Dagenham, or co-invest with us in one of our community-led funds, where grant-making decisions sit with local people. If it's learning you're after, you can explore our co-design process to see how we build projects with residents rather than for them, or commission us to run short courses and workshops teaching the tools we use every day: community-led grant-making, resident engagement, co-production and advocacy. And if you're unsure where to start, you can simply meet Kate for a tour of the borough: a chance to see the community firsthand, hear from local people, and get a feel for which opportunity fits your goals — no agenda, just a proper introduction.
Our approach to AI is to always be person-centred, so decisions will never be made wholly by AI. All applications will be reviewed by a human, who may be using AI to help speed up decision-making and carry out due diligence.
We will always be transparent about where, when, and how we are using AI and we expect the same in return.