Women's Vote Centenary Grant Scheme

Women’s Vote Centenary Grant Scheme

The Women’s Vote Centenary Grants Scheme celebrated the 100 year anniversary of the Representation of the People Act in 1918; the Act extended the vote to women for the first time in the United Kingdom.

The scheme, worth £1,500,000, was managed by Ecorys on behalf of the Government Equalities Office (GEO).

We were awarded the contract in November 2017 and launched the scheme in early December 2017 to ensure there was enough time to approve grants in line with the date of the centenary of the Act on 5 February 2018.

We manage the full grant lifecycle of this scheme through two funds, a small grants fund (worth £300 – £2000) and a large grants fund (worth £2,000 – £125,000).

Our key responsibilities included promoting the scheme, managing the application, assessment and grant award processes, project support and monitoring, making payments and reporting and evaluation.

We worked with GEO to produce the framework for applications within the following three objectives:

• Educate – To increase young people’s knowledge of UK democracy and its importance, and increase their democratic participation.
• Participate – To aspire to achieve gender parity in local and national politics by the centenary of the Equal Franchise Act by 2028
• Celebrate – To increase national awareness and mark 100 years since women got the right to vote.

Eligible applicants included voluntary and community organisations and educational institutions. The scheme aimed to award grants across England to ensure a good spread across all regions.

The project completed in April 2019. The scheme awarded:

• 220 Small Grants totalling over £340,000 ranging from £300 through to £2,000
• 25 Large Grants totalling over £1 million ranging from £2,800 through to £124,000

The Small Grants projects increased national awareness of the centenary since women got the right to vote.

The Large Grants projects, whilst also celebrating the centenary milestone, increased young people’s knowledge of UK democracy and helped work towards gender parity in local and national politics by 2028.