Who can apply?

Any Christian organization that is working with children and young people with the age range 11 to 25, and demonstrates their work fulfils both the Objects of MYA

1. To help young people to develop their physical, mental and spiritual capacities so that they may grow to full maturity as individuals, and their condition of life may be improved.
2. And to awaken, or strengthen, in them their desire for a full and active Christian life.

What do we fund?

• Youth Events: e.g. Coast-to-Coast cycle ride for inner city youth.

• International Youth Exchanges: especially involving young people in Urban Priority Areas.

•  Group visits to experience a different culture:
  e.g. to East Africa to see work with victims of poverty and AIDS;
  e.g. to the Far East to meet people of a different religion.

•  Equipment for Youth Work: Sports – Music – Disco – Multi-Media – etc.

•  Youth Worker Schemes: We give precedence to projects involving outreach.MYA would expect for a major scheme, that the organization applying would contribute to the cost of the project, both at local level, and, if it applies, at regional level. Thus a Methodist church would need to show funding not only from its local revenue, but also from its Circuit, and possibly District and Connexion.This demonstrates to the trustees that the organization applying is committed to its project and has the approval of its area and regional bodies.

What do we not fund?

MYA will not fund:

• Projects run by organizations based outside the United Kingdom.

• Projects and activities that demonstrate only physical or intellectual development with little or no prospect for spiritual development and maturing in Christian faith.

• Building schemes or refurbishment schemes – even if they are used exclusively by young people.

Size of grants

Grants are usually between about £1,000 and £5,000.  We are willing to consider funding up to three years.   See examples for an indication of what we have given recently.

Follow up

As a responsible grant-making trust, MYA needs to know that the money we give is being used wisely and properly. We therefore send with the grant a Grant Feedback Form to be completed and returned before the trustees’ grant-making meeting one year later.

We also ask for the annual report for the project and audited annual accounts. These tell us how they used their grant.

Where funding for two or three years has been agreed, the next grant is only released when the trustees have seen and approved the returned Feedback Form, Annual Report and Accounts and a budget for the next year, showing that the costs will be fully funded.

With this, we also aim to use our funds well and to improve our grant-making so that the money works well for everybody.

How to apply

1. You need to complete an Application Form that you obtain from the Secretary (see Contact Us page).  This tells us what you want to do, what it will cost, and how you are going to fund it.
2. With the form you send the latest annual accounts for your organization (church, circuit, Churches Together, free-standing project – whichever is responsible for the project) and the full income and expenditure budget for the project.
3. If your project is NOT under the authority of the Methodist Church, you need to send copies of your decision-making structure and your safeguarding policy.
4. If your request for funding is to employ a worker, you need to send a job description and initial work plan for that post.
5.  You send the form and the relevant documents for your project to the Secretary of MYA.
6. For it to be considered at the next grant-making meeting, it needs to arrive before the closing date: 30 April for the June meeting or 30 September for the November meeting. The early closing date allows us time to contact applicants and referees, where further information or the strengthening of their application may be required.
7. Your application will be acknowledged when we receive it, and we will let you know the result straight after the meeting. Grants to successful applicants are usually available by the end of the month of the grant-making meeting.
8. For a new project that is in the planning stage, the grant will be paid when it is ready to begin.
9. For a large project, where MYA funding is a small proportion of the total and will be leverage for further applications, the grant will only be paid when more than 80% of that year’s budget is secured.

               MYA Ltd      Registered Charity 1028540    Company No 1580871