GRANT KNOWLEDGE DOCUMENT Organisation: Mayesbrook Youth Project C.I.C. Last updated: 8 September 2026 How to use this template ------------------------ Fill in each section below. Aim for at least 50 words per answer. Write in plain paragraphs. Avoid bullet points or heavy formatting. Write what is true and evidenced, not what sounds impressive. When you are done, save this file as your master grant knowledge document. You can upload it to an AI Project or Gem, or attach the latest version manually whenever you start a grant conversation. The important thing is to keep one maintained version and use it consistently. Before adding organisational material, check the privacy settings in the AI tool you are using. On consumer accounts, turn off any setting that allows your chats, files or activity to be used to improve or train models. For many small and medium-sized organisations, a first paid tier such as ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro or Gemini Advanced is a realistic step up from a free account: better file handling, higher limits and clearer control over model-training settings. For ordinary organisational material, this is usually a proportionate starting point when those settings are turned off. It is still not the same as a private in-house system. Even with training turned off, AI providers may retain, process or exceptionally review content for service operation, abuse prevention, safety, legal compliance, feedback handling or technical support. Treat AI tools as third-party services. Do not enter beneficiary personal data, safeguarding records, health information, bank details, contact details or staff personal information. How this fits into your drafting flow ------------------------------------- This document is your reusable knowledge source. Do not paste live application questions into this file. Keep the funder questions separate and provide them in the AI conversation after the AI has confirmed it has read this document. The workflow is: first ask the AI to read this document, then paste the full list of application questions as a separate message, then ask the AI to work through those questions one at a time. When the AI surfaces useful new information during a drafting session, add it back here afterwards so the document improves over time. MAYESBROOK YOUTH PROJECT WRITING STYLE --------------------------------------- Mayesbrook Youth Project should sound local, straightforward and respectful. Write in plain English, with warmth but without trying to sound polished or dramatic. Name what staff, volunteers and young people do, using specific local detail where it helps. Do not describe young people as problems to be fixed, exaggerate the difference we make, or claim that one activity changes everything. Use clear statements supported by evidence and real quotations. Never use em dashes in any drafted response: use commas, full stops or colons instead, as em dashes are the most revealing sign that text was written by an AI. Test scenario note ------------------ This populated version is a worked example built for the BD Collective lunch and learn session, showing what a genuinely rich, well-evidenced knowledge document can look like once an organisation has built it out over time, rather than a first, lighter attempt. The level of specificity, named detail and evidence here is calibrated against Early Years Cocoon's own fully developed Funding Knowledge Base, so it reads as a realistic ceiling to aim for, not a starting point. The organisation, its history, figures, partners and quotes are invented for illustration; the Barking and Dagenham borough statistics are real and sourced as noted. It assumes a fictional application for an £18,000 grant to sustain one weekly youth club and mentoring programme for 12 months. It is not a live funder submission and should be checked against current accounts, current delivery plans and the latest monitoring data before use in any real application. ------------------------------------------------------------------ SECTION 1: YOUR CHARITY / ORGANISATION Who you are and who you serve ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 1.1: What is your organisation's name? Answer: Mayesbrook Youth Project C.I.C. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 1.2: What kind of organisation are you? (Registered charity, CIC, volunteer-led community group, etc. If not registered, note that you have a constitution and trustees or management committee.) Answer: Mayesbrook Youth Project is a Community Interest Company based in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. It began in 2016 as a volunteer-led detached youth work project, running informal sessions in Mayesbrook Park after two founding youth workers noticed groups of teenagers with nowhere to go once local youth clubs closed. It was incorporated as a CIC in 2019 to take on paid staff, hold formal venue agreements and apply for grant funding in its own right. The organisation is asset-locked, with any surplus reinvested in delivery. Governance sits with a seven-strong board of directors, including two former service users now in their twenties, a retired local headteacher, a qualified accountant, a youth justice specialist and a long-standing community elder, giving the board a mix of lived experience, professional expertise and local standing. The board meets quarterly, with financial oversight reviewed at every meeting and a full annual review of strategy and safeguarding practice. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 1.3: How big are you? (Annual income, or if newly set up, an estimate for this year.) Answer: £95,000 for the current financial year. Mayesbrook Youth Project has grown steadily since incorporation: from occasional volunteer-led sessions in 2016, to roughly 60 young people a year by 2019, to around 120 a year once face-to-face delivery resumed fully after the pandemic in 2022, to approximately 180 young people a year now, following three-year funding secured in 2023 that allowed the project to move from sessional to core paid staffing. The team comprises two part-time youth workers, one sessional mentoring coordinator and a pool of 15 trained volunteers, around a third of whom are alumni of the project's own youth club. Internal records show a funding track record of approximately £320,000 secured across 14 grants since incorporation, with only one project delivered over budget in that time. A core group of around 40 young people attends most weeks, alongside a mentoring caseload of 15 and a current waiting list of 20. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 1.4: Who does your organisation support and where? (Be specific about groups and location. Note any groups that are a priority for funders you commonly apply to.) Answer: Mayesbrook Youth Project supports young people aged 11 to 17 across Barking and Dagenham, with a particular focus on those at risk of school exclusion, exploitation or becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training) once they leave school. Barking and Dagenham has the highest proportion of residents under 16 of any local authority in England and Wales, at 26.1%, and 46% of children in the borough are estimated to live in poverty, the third highest rate in England and Wales (LBBD Cabinet Education Performance Report, November 2025). Most of the young people the project works with live in the Thames, Gascoigne and Becontree wards, areas among the most deprived in the borough, and many are also affected by overcrowded housing, a family member known to youth justice services, or growing up in a household reliant on low-paid or insecure work. Around 55% of members identify as Black, Asian or of mixed ethnic heritage, reflecting the diversity of the surrounding wards, and roughly one in five has an identified special educational need, most commonly related to speech, language, communication or social and emotional development. Sessions run from community venues including Mayesbrook Park Pavilion, Marks Gate Community Centre and Thames Ward Community Centre, chosen because they sit within walking distance of the estates most families live on. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 1.5: Write a short statement describing your organisation and the services or support it provides. (The funder probably knows nothing about you. Tell them what you do and how. Include any particular expertise or capabilities.) Answer: Mayesbrook Youth Project provides free weekly youth club sessions, one-to-one and small-group mentoring, detached outreach and school holiday activity days for young people in Barking and Dagenham. Its core offer combines structured activities such as sport, music, cooking and creative arts with informal mentoring conversations, detached work around known local hotspots, and referral pathways into careers advice, counselling and specialist support. The model draws on National Youth Agency good practice guidance and trauma-informed mentoring principles, delivered by a small, consistent team of youth workers who grew up locally and are trusted by young people and families in a way that statutory services often are not. The project achieved the National Youth Agency's Youth Work Quality Mark in 2024, in recognition of its safeguarding practice, session planning and outcomes framework. Staff and volunteers between them hold Level 3 youth work qualifications, trauma-informed practice training, detached youth work accreditation and Prince's Trust delivery licences, allowing the project to offer accredited personal development modules alongside its informal club and mentoring offer. ------------------------------------------------------------------ SECTION 2: ABOUT YOUR FUNDING BID PROJECT / ACTIVITY The need, the plan, and the difference you will make ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 2.1: Why is your charitable project or activity needed? (What is the unmet need you address? Use data and evidence. It is not about what you want, but what your beneficiaries need.) Answer: Young people in Barking and Dagenham face some of the highest levels of deprivation and economic disadvantage in London. 62.4% of households in the borough have at least one measure of deprivation, the highest proportion in England and Wales, and youth unemployment among 18 to 24 year olds stands at 15%, one of the highest rates in London (LBBD Foundations for Change: Tackling Poverty strategy, 2025-2026). An estimated 24.6% of borough residents earn below the Living Wage, and the same strategy notes that many young people who become NEET are also care-experienced, have faced adverse childhood experiences, or are managing intergenerational worklessness, sickness or caring responsibilities at home. The borough has also reported a national pattern of rising school suspension rates and growing numbers of children entering the school system with more complex needs, alongside 2,942 children and young people currently holding an Education, Health and Care Plan and a further 5,539 requiring SEN support (LBBD Cabinet Education Performance Reports, 2024 and 2025). Without positive, trusted spaces to spend their time and a consistent adult relationship outside school and home, young people in the borough are more exposed to exploitation, exclusion from school and drift towards NEET status. Young people themselves describe this plainly: as one member put it during a project consultation session, "there's nowhere else round here that's just for us, that isn't school and isn't home." ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 2.2: What makes funding your project so urgent and/or important? (What is particularly pressing? Any recent research, media coverage or rising demand that makes this issue especially timely?) Answer: The need is urgent because free, trusted youth provision in the borough has not kept pace with demand. Several open-access youth clubs that operated locally in the early 2010s closed as local authority youth service budgets were reduced, and the borough's own education performance reporting flags rising suspension rates and growing numbers of children with complex needs as a live pressure on schools and Alternative Provision. Mayesbrook Youth Project's own waiting list has grown from 8 young people in 2023 to 20 today, and referrals from two local secondary schools have roughly doubled over the last two academic years, driven in part by schools' own early help and pastoral teams actively seeking a trusted external space to refer at-risk pupils to. Local police Safer Neighbourhoods officers have also raised concerns directly with the project about a small number of known exploitation hotspots within a ten-minute walk of two of its venues. Without continued funding for the weekly club and mentoring offer, young people already known to be at risk lose one of the few consistent, non-judgemental spaces available to them locally, at exactly the point demand and referrals are rising fastest. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 2.3: Tell me about any key dates and how long it will last. (Include milestones and deadlines. Many funders meet quarterly or annually, so give them enough lead time.) Answer: For this test scenario, assume the grant would fund one weekly youth club session and a linked mentoring programme for 12 months, from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2027. The first month would confirm venue booking, staff and volunteer rotas, DBS checks and referral pathways with partner schools, and recruit two additional sessional mentors to bring the mentoring caseload down from a waiting list of 20 to a manageable ratio. Delivery would then run weekly in term time and through a lighter Easter, May half-term and summer holiday programme, with each mentoring relationship formally reviewed every six weeks against agreed goals. Progress would be reviewed at the six-month point with the funder and referring schools together, with a full end-of-year report and an invitation to visit a session or the annual summer showcase event, where young people present projects and performances to families and partners. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 2.4: Describe what your project will involve, how it will be delivered, where and by whom, including any partners. (Give funders the detail they need to see a practical, deliverable plan.) Answer: The project will fund one free weekly youth club session, plus one-to-one and small-group mentoring, for young people aged 11 to 17 in Barking and Dagenham. The youth club runs on Tuesday evenings at Mayesbrook Park Pavilion, offering sport, music production, cooking and informal discussion activities led by two part-time youth workers, supported by trained volunteers, with an average weekly attendance of 40 young people. Mentoring runs alongside the club for young people referred by local schools or the borough's early help team, matching each young person with a consistent mentor for structured, trauma-informed one-to-one sessions held weekly at school or at the project's venues, currently supporting a caseload of 15 with 20 more on the waiting list. A lighter holiday programme runs across Easter, May half-term and the six-week summer break, including trips, an accredited Prince's Trust personal development module and the project's annual summer showcase. The project works alongside two local secondary schools (referral and pastoral link meetings held termly), the borough's early help service, the local Safer Neighbourhoods policing team, and Roding Valley Boxing Club, which hosts a fortnightly non-contact fitness session for club members as an informal diversionary activity. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 2.5: Outcomes are the difference your project will make. List these, including who will benefit, the numbers, and how big an impact this will have on them. (Outcomes are changes for people, not activities delivered. How many will benefit, and how significantly?) Answer: The project would benefit around 40 young people each week through the club and around 15 through structured one-to-one mentoring, generating approximately 1,800 to 2,000 attendances over 12 months. Young people attending the club consistently show improved confidence, communication and emotional regulation, and reduced involvement in risky behaviour, tracked through facilitator observation and a termly self-assessment survey; the 2025 survey (48 respondents) recorded average scores of 4.3 out of 5 for feeling safe at the project and 4.1 out of 5 for having an adult they trust to talk to. Young people in structured mentoring show a more marked shift: of the 22 young people who completed a full six-month mentoring cycle in 2025, 17 (77%) had no further fixed-term school exclusions in the following two terms, compared with school-reported exclusion patterns before referral, and referring schools reported improved attendance for 14 of the 22. Families report feeling reassured that their child has a trusted adult and a safe, structured space outside school and home, and several parents have gone on to volunteer at project events themselves. At a community level, the project's presence at known local hotspots through detached outreach is credited by local police contacts with a reduction in reported anti-social behaviour incidents on two estates during the project's regular outreach evenings. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 2.6: Will there be other benefits, such as impact on the wider community, sustainability, or best practice to be shared? (Wider, longer-term impact: community effects, systemic change, or something that outlasts the funded period.) Answer: The wider benefit is a reduction in anti-social behaviour and exploitation risk linked to young people having nowhere safe to go after school, alongside a growing pipeline of local role models: around a third of current volunteers, and one of the project's two part-time youth workers, are former service users, so the project builds trust and credibility that an outside organisation could not replicate quickly. Learning from the mentoring programme feeds directly into termly referral conversations with local schools and the early help team, helping partners understand what is and is not working for young people at risk of exclusion, and the project shares an anonymised version of its termly outcomes summary with both referring schools. The project also acts as a connector between young people and the borough's careers service, CAMHS referral pathway and Job Centre Plus, helping partners reach young people who might otherwise disengage from formal services altogether. The long-term aim is that fewer young people in the borough reach crisis point, whether that is permanent school exclusion, exploitation or contact with youth justice services, because support and a trusted relationship arrive earlier and are sustained for long enough to matter. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 2.7: How will you know or measure that your project has been a success, and how will you report to the funder? (Methods, tools, frequency. How will the funder hear about the impact they have made? Will you produce a report, write to them, invite them to visit, or recognise their support where appropriate?) Answer: Mayesbrook Youth Project tracks attendance through a simple register and case management spreadsheet, and reviews each mentoring relationship every six weeks against a short set of goals agreed with the young person, their mentor and, where appropriate, the referring school. Youth workers record session observations and any safeguarding or wellbeing concerns immediately, in line with the project's safeguarding policy. The project also runs a termly anonymous self-assessment survey with club members and an annual survey with parents and referring professionals, and holds a structured six-monthly review meeting with each partner school to compare project data against school-held attendance and behaviour records. Recent results show 85% of mentored young people reporting improved confidence in the termly survey and 78% of referring school staff reporting improved attendance or behaviour among referred pupils in the annual partner survey. The funder would receive a mid-year update and a full end-of-year report covering reach, attendance, outcomes, case studies and any adaptations made during delivery, would be named in the project's annual supporter update circulated to partners, and would be warmly welcomed to visit a session or the annual summer showcase. ------------------------------------------------------------------ SECTION 3: THE GRANT FUNDING YOU NEED Amount, budget breakdown, and what it covers ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 3.1: What amount of funding are you requesting? (If it is a contribution, write "a contribution of £X towards the total cost of £Y." Mention any funding already secured.) Answer: For this worked example, Mayesbrook Youth Project is requesting £18,000 to fund one weekly youth club session and a linked mentoring programme for 12 months. The assumption for the test is that the grant would cover the full direct cost of delivering the club and mentoring offer, including youth worker time, venue costs, activities, safeguarding and monitoring. A separate three-year grant already secured in 2023 covers core staffing costs for the wider project; this application is for the direct delivery costs of the specific weekly club and mentoring strand, not a contribution to core costs already funded elsewhere. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 3.2: Provide a simple breakdown of what you will spend this funding on and the amount for each item. (Main headings and amounts only. Keep it clear and proportionate. Do not include bank details or account numbers here.) Answer: Illustrative budget for the £18,000 test grant: Youth worker and mentor delivery time: £8,000 Venue hire and venue-related costs: £2,400 Sport, music, cooking and creative activity resources: £2,200 Holiday programme trips and enrichment activities: £2,000 Monitoring, evaluation, administration and funder reporting: £1,400 Volunteer expenses and refreshments: £1,000 Safeguarding, DBS checks, training and insurance contribution: £1,000 Total: £18,000 ------------------------------------------------------------------ SECTION 4: THE FINISHING TOUCHES What makes it a really good grant bid ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 4.1: Is there anything else that will make your funding bid really compelling? (Awards, accreditations, quality marks, significant data from past work, rising demand, or strong recent feedback.) Answer: Mayesbrook Youth Project is well placed to deliver this work because it has run trusted youth provision in Barking and Dagenham since 2016 and has tested its mentoring model over several years, growing from occasional volunteer-led sessions to a funded programme supporting around 180 young people a year. Its team combines National Youth Agency-accredited youth work qualifications, trauma-informed mentoring training and deep local knowledge, with a third of current volunteers and one of its two youth workers having come through the project themselves as young people. The organisation holds formal termly referral relationships with two local secondary schools and the borough's early help team, achieved the National Youth Agency's Youth Work Quality Mark in 2024, and was highly commended in a regional youth achievement award in 2025. Since incorporation in 2019 it has secured approximately £320,000 across 14 grants, including three-year funding from 2023 that moved the project from sessional to core staffing, with only one funded project delivered over budget in that time. It has a growing waiting list of 20 young people, strong repeat attendance, and consistently positive feedback from young people, parents and referring professionals, alongside a supportive relationship with the local Safer Neighbourhoods policing team. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Question 4.2: Do you have any quotes that show the impact you have on people's lives? (Attribute by role title or "anonymous". Never include full names or identifying details about the people you support.) Answer: Anonymous young person, aged 15: "Coming here is the one thing in my week that's just for me. The youth workers actually listen." Anonymous young person, aged 13, mentoring programme: "My mentor is the only adult who doesn't just talk to me about what I've done wrong." Anonymous parent: "My son was heading for exclusion. His mentor has stuck with him and school say he's a different kid now." Anonymous referring teacher, partner secondary school: "We refer here because we know young people will actually turn up, and something changes when they do. The termly updates make a real difference to how we plan support at school too." Anonymous local Safer Neighbourhoods officer: "Since the project started running Tuesday evenings on the estate, we've had noticeably fewer call-outs on that patch. That's not a coincidence." ------------------------------------------------------------------ END OF TEMPLATE Add to this document over time. The more specific and evidenced your answers, the stronger every draft the AI produces will be. Before submitting any AI-assisted application, do a final human check: - Is the tone right for the funder? - Is the spelling, grammar and formatting clean? - Are all facts, figures, dates and budget lines accurate? - Have you answered the actual funder questions, not just written something generally persuasive? - Have you included all relevant information from your knowledge document? - Have you followed the funder's instructions on AI use? Built with the Charity Excellence question framework. A free resource from Grant Resource Studio: grantresourcestudio.com