Youth Guarantee Trailblazer

14 October 2025

Fund now open for applications. Deadline 11.59 pm, Sunday 9^th November 2025.

Application form, supporting documents and further information is available further down this page, including how to book onto the online briefing workshops taking place on 15^th, 16^th and 20^th October.

Introduction

The Government’s Get Britain Working White Paper was published in November 2024.

The White Paper set out how the Government is investing £240m to trial new ways to get people back into work. This includes £45m to establish eight Youth Guarantee Trailblazer (YGT) areas. The Liverpool City Region has been selected as one of these areas, with the aim of testing new ways of supporting young people into employment or training, by bringing together and enhancing existing programmes in partnership with local areas to reduce inactivity.

Following a competitive tendering process, VOLA has been appointed by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to manage this YGT Community Grants programme, targeted at voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) organisations across the city region.

This grants programme is aimed at supporting young people aged 18-21 who are not in employment, education or training (NEET), by providing access to education, training, or employment support.

Funding

£711,000 is available across the city region, to be allocated in one grant funding round to take place during October and November 2025.

Grants of between £10,000 and £40,000 are available per application.

Eligible organisations are permitted to submit one or more applications; however, applications should be specific to each Local authority area they plan to deliver within; and each individual, borough-specific application needs to be deliverable/ financially viable as a self-contained project in the absence of success in securing funding in other boroughs applied for.

Key timescales

Tuesday 14^th October 2025: application window opens – application form and all supporting documents will be posted on this page by 5pm on this date.
Wednesday 29^th October, 5 pm – deadline for questions.
Sunday 9^th November, 11.59 pm – application deadline.
W/c 1^st December – outcome confirmed to applicants.
ASAP following this date – Grant Agreements issued, initial payments made and delivery commences.
31^st March 2026 – all funding needs to be spent and project activity completed.
30^th April 2026 – evaluation report required by VOLA.

Who is eligible to apply?

Applications are invited from legally constituted, VCFSE sector organisations, run on a not-for-profit basis, with an operational base in the Liverpool City Region.

Organisations must have a bank account in its own name with at least two unrelated authorised signatories.

In addition, applicant organisations must have been in existence for at least 12 months and be a going concern.

Financial standing, governance arrangements, capacity and capability will be checked through due diligence processes.

Racial equality and support available

We actively welcome and support the submission of applications from organisations supporting Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.

We try and use plain English in all documentation, as much as we possibly can, though some jargon can’t be avoided.

We will try our absolute best to support any language barriers people may have that makes it difficult for them to apply. Try and use Google Translate and if this doesn’t work well for you, please get in touch and we will try and help.

Applications will not be accepted from:

Individuals, or organisations that consist of one family (i.e. organisations whose Board of Directors/ Trustees are made up entirely of related family members)
Statutory bodies, including Parish and Town Councils
Schools, colleges or universities
Health authorities, or for activities that should be funded by the health service
Housing Associations
Private Companies Ltd by Shares
Organisations distributing profits to members or shareholders (or whose constitution allows for this, whether or not they actually do distribute them)
Applications to fund religious or political activities (however, faith-based organisations are eligible to apply)
Grant-making bodies applying for funding to redistribute to individuals or groups
Organisations/ groups whose sole purpose is to campaign, or organisations seeking funding for any campaigning activity

Further detail on eligible and ineligible organisations/ applications will be provided in the Specification & Guidance document below.

Key themes of Community Grant investment

As prescribed by our funders, the scope of this funding is limited to the following themes that grants should focus upon (recognising that themes may be combined and addressed within one grant award):

Mental health support – including dealing with bereavement support
Support for those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
Neurodivergent young people
Support for those with a record of youth offending and recidivism
Support for young, single parents
Support to prevent substance misuse (including those with a highly addictive potential such as Ketamine that have increased in use by particular groups of young people), current drug users, and CPD for professionals working with drug users
Financial skills and money management
Team/trust building
Building soft and communication skills as well as literacy and numeracy needs
Mentoring/coaching and capacity-building in specific sectors
Confidence building for targeted vulnerable groups including those experiencing, or with experience of, homelessness
Support for individuals who experience multiple barriers and disadvantage, including at least one of the above

Whilst it is understood that other issues may impact the quality of life of young people, these will not be considered as part of this grant programme.

Grant awards cannot duplicate or displace existing activities and applications/ projects must be for the benefit of Liverpool City Region residents.

Note: Care Leavers and Care Experienced Young People – in submitting applications, applicants should note that significant Trailblazer funding has been ring-fenced at a Local Authority level to support Care Leavers and Care Experienced Young People in particular, and that therefore potential duplication and displacement will be carefully considered as part of the appraisal process.

Briefing Workshops

To support interested applicants, we will host an online briefing (Zoom). For convenience, this will be run on 3 occasions, on different days and at different times. You only need to attend one session.

Session 1 – Wednesday 15^th October. Complete
Session 2 – Thursday 16^th October. Complete
Session 3 – Monday 20^th October, 1-2 pm. Book your place here.

The session will summarise key information relating to the fund – purpose, eligibility criteria, what it can/ can’t fund, the application process, rules and regulations you will need to abide by, etc. This will be useful in helping you to decide on whether or not to apply.

Application documents

Note the three documents have been updated 16^th October – no significant changes to affect your application – but there were a few incorrect references to 2026 instead of saying 2025, which have been corrected to avoid confusion. If you have already started working on the previous version of the application form, that’s absolutely fine. There’s no need to transfer over to the updated version.

Please read both guidance documents carefully first – they will help towards producing a good application and should answer any queries you have. If you can’t find the answer to your question in the documents, please get in touch.

Queries

Any questions should be emailed to YGT@volamerseyside.org.uk 5pm, Wednesday 29^th October 2025. We will aim to respond within 3 working days.