AVA is delighted to announce that the Community Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund for Adults has returned for Round 6. To date, £3,391,845 has been disbursed through this mechanism and 345 Aberdeenshire-based projects have been supported. 

For Round 6 AVA has a guaranteed £656,567.12 to disburse to community, voluntary and third sector organisations to deliver valuable projects that respond to local mental health and wellbeing challenges. Round 5 afforded the opportunity to award multi-year grants to appropriate projects, and those projects who were awarded indicative funding for round 6 have already been contacted about this. Because multi-year funding was allocated to round 6 for projects who applied in round 5, we will only be able to offer funding on a one-year basis for new applications in Round 6. Based on already committed funds for Round 6, there will be a minimum of £134,372.32 available for new applications. 

The overarching aim of the Fund is to support community-based initiatives that are ideally designed and delivered within Aberdeenshire for the benefit of Aberdeenshire residents; projects that promote and develop good mental health and wellbeing and/or mitigate and protect against the impact of distress and mental ill health within the adult population (aged 16 or over), with a particular focus on prevention and early intervention are specifically encouraged. 

Specifically, the Scottish Government has prescribed the Fund aims to be: 

1. Tackle mental health inequalities through supporting a range of ‘at risk’ groups (as outlined in the Equalities section). 

2. Address priority issues of social isolation and loneliness, suicide prevention and poverty and inequality with a particular emphasis on responding to the cost-of-living crisis and support to those facing socio-economic disadvantage. 

3. Support small ‘grass roots’ community groups and organisations to deliver such activities. 

4. Provide opportunities for people to connect with each other, build trusted relationships and revitalise communities.

The ambition of The Fund is to support initiatives which promote good mental health and wellbeing at a small scale, grass roots, community level. It will be accessible to all groups, no matter how small they are (including unconstituted groups). It can support both new and existing groups or projects, and it is AVA’s intention that new and unconstituted groups will be supported with governance, funding and volunteering advice that facilitates them to build internal capacity. 

Applicant organisations do not have to have mental health and wellbeing as their main focus, but their application does have to clearly benefit the mental health and wellbeing of people in the community that they serve, be that a community of geography or a community of interest. 

The Scottish Government has identified that evidence shows the pandemic has exacerbated existing mental health inequalities and has had a disproportionate impact on the mental wellbeing of a range of groups in society. Applications are strongly encouraged from groups and organisations that are delivering projects which are inclusive of (but not necessarily exclusive to) the following priority ‘at risk’ groups: 

• Women (particularly young women, and women affected by male sexual violence). 

• People with a long-term health condition or disability. 

• People from a Minority Ethnic background. 

• Refugees and those with no recourse to public funds. 

• People facing socio-economic disadvantage. 

• People experiencing severe and multiple disadvantages. 

• People with diagnosed mental illness (applications that support people who have a Dementia diagnosis are particularly welcome). 

• People affected by psychological trauma (including adverse childhood experiences). 

• People who have experienced bereavement or loss. 

• People disadvantaged by geographical location (particularly remote and rural areas). 

• Older people (aged 65 and above). 

• People with neurological conditions or learning disabilities, and from neurodiverse communities. 

• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) communities. 

• Young people aged 16-24 

Additionally, Aberdeenshire-based applications that seek to support men at risk of suicide, and the mental health and wellbeing of carers and unpaid carers are particularly welcome. 

To enable groups and organisations to manage any grant that they secure, and to facilitate access to smaller grants for small groups and organisations, the following levels are being applied to The Fund for Round 6:

• Level 1, £0-£3,000: Unconstituted Groups with an income of no more than £100,000 in the most recent financial year

• Level 2, £3,000.01-£12,000: Constituted Groups only, with an income of no more than £500,000 in the most recent financial year

Unconstituted groups will have the opportunity to apply for grants of up to £3,000, and where a group does not have access to a bank account for their organisation, constituted groups and organisations will be able to hold a grant for them (providing a letter of agreement is provided with their application). This is to enable smaller, ‘heart of the community’ -type groups to benefit from the Fund and deliver their services/projects within their neighbourhoods. 

• Applications open on Monday 14th September 2026 at 5pm

• Applications close on Friday 16th October 2026 at 5pm

• Payments to successful applicants will be made during the first full working week of January 2027

Should you need, you can ask for the help of an AVA Development Officer. During the application phase, and specifically for equalities purposes, a team of AVA’s Development Officers will be available to provide support to groups who, for legitimate reasons require additional help to complete the application form. They will be available to discuss applications with groups and organisations, although engagement in those discussions will not form any guarantee that applications will be successful during the assessment process.

This team of Development Officers will not be involved in assessing any applications and will have no input to the assessment process to influence any decisions. 

Access the Support Request Form here

As part of receiving funding, organisations will be asked to tell us about the difference their project has made through an end of project evaluation.

We encourage you to think about evaluation from the start of the project. This does not need to be complicated, but you should plan how you will collect information throughout the funded period rather than waiting until the end of the project. This will help you to complete evaluation reports and provide examples to demonstrate the difference funding has made.

Please click here for useful guides from Evaluation Support Scotland.

This will enable potential applicants to see if you are likely to be eligible to apply to the fund. If the answer is yes, a full application form will be made available to you. If AVA already holds details about your group, the application form will include the details we hold and you are invited to check/amend these rather than start the application from scratch.

If we don’t hold information about your group, you will have access to a blank application form. If the answer through the eligibility checker is no, you will receive a message telling you why, and you will be invited to ask for support to understand this further if you would like to.  

Complete the Eligibility Checker now

Read the complete Round 6 Local Delivery Plan here

Application Form in non-editable PDF form can be found here. The live application form is accessed through the eligibility checker above.

AVA will be running three support webinars for those interested in applying. These webinars will take you through the Fund in more detail and explain the application and assessment process:

• 24th September, 1pm

• 29th September, 12pm

• 8th October, 6:30pm

You can register for the webinars here