Guidance

This is the guidance for the Taic Freumhan Coimhearsnachd 2026-28 scheme. A version of this guidance is available in PDF format here, and other formats of the guidance can be made available on request by emailing tabhartas@gaidhlig.scot.

The scheme closes at 3pm on Wednesday 10 December 2025. This page was last updated on 21 October 2025.

Table of contents

• About the Fund
• Project requirements
• Social and other responsibilities
• Submitting an application
• How we will handle your application
• More information

 

About the Fund

Taic Freumhan Coimhearsnachd is Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s primary fund for supporting projects to promote and increase the usage and learning of Gaelic at community level in Scotland. The scheme is open both to community-based organisations and individuals.

The fund offers the opportunity to apply for up to 2 years’ worth of funding, in between March 2026 and August 2028, for longer-term projects or those that are recurring annually. The estimated budget for the scheme is £200,000, pending confirmation of Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s 2026/27 budget, and you can apply for up to £5,000 for projects lasting up to 1 year, or up to £10,000 for projects lasting up to 2 years.

Previous rounds of the fund have been competitive, therefore we expect that we will not be able to award funding to all applications that could be considered suitable.

The fund is flexible in supporting most types of projects that seek to bring people together to use Gaelic, but we are particularly looking to support:

• Gaelic events in your community and online
• Projects and opportunities that encourage young people to use Gaelic together outside of school
• Projects that support Gaelic usage among families and between generations
• Adult Gaelic learning in the community
• Colmcille – Building connections between speakers of Gaelic and Irish

In your application we expect you to expand on how your project meets one or more of these aims. You should also be aware of the how your project may contribute to Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s Corporate Plan 2023-28 and the National Gaelic Language Plan 2023-28.

In assessing your application, we will be primarily looking at:

• How strongly your project would promote the use of Gaelic in your community and achieve the specific aims we have for this year
• The ability of your organisation/you as an individual to deliver the project successfully
• The strength of your plans to assess the impact of your project
• The value for money demonstrated by the project
• How you currently fulfil and would fulfil responsibilities in terms of the Environment, Equalities and Fair Work

Detailed guidance as to how applications will be assessed can be found on Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s website.

 

Project Requirements

Who can apply?

The scheme is open to third sector organisations, schools or individuals based in Scotland. You are likely eligible to apply if you are one of the following (and not excluded by restrictions further down the page):

• A registered Scottish charity or community interest company (CIC) with an office in Scotland
• A voluntary group with a constitution and a committee based in Scotland
• A school operated by a Scottish local authority (for extra-curricular projects)
• An individual aged 18 or over who is resident in Scotland

Examples of projects that have previously received support through Taic Freumhan Coimhearsnachd can be found via the GrantNav website.

Applicants may submit a maximum of one application in this funding round.

If you received support through the 2024-26 or 2025-27 funding rounds of the scheme you will only be eligible to apply for support for a project that begins after your current award ends (e.g. if your current project ends in July 2026, your new project could start in August 2026). If you have any questions about your eligibility please get in touch with Bòrd na Gàidhlig as soon as possible.

It is also essential that you have an active UK bank account, in the name of the organisation/individual applying, at the time of submitting the application. If you do not have an account and are in the process of applying for the opening of a bank account, you are ineligible to apply. Please consult our bank account guidance for further information.

Who cannot apply?

We will be unable to support you through this scheme if you are one of the following:

• Public or local authorities, schools, or organisations where local authorities are the sole members/directors
• Commercial or for-profit organisations
• Bòrd na Gàidhlig Delivery Partners

You cannot apply as an individual for any projects that would involve an organisation of which you are a committee member or staff member.

Project Timeframe

The fund will support projects which will start between 2 March 2026 and 31 December 2026 and will be fully completed by 31 August 2028, and we will only provide funding for this round for up to 2 years within that timeframe.

It is expected that the next funding round will run from October 2026 to January 2027 for 2027-29 projects.

What costs are supported?

Organisations may request up to £5,000 for projects with a duration of up to 1 year, or £10,000 for projects with a duration of 12-24 months (which may be pro-rated based on £5,000 p.a.). Individuals can apply for up to £5,000, for projects of a duration up to 24 months.

You can apply for a maximum of up to 80% of project costs as long as this is below the maximum sum stated above.

Projects should aim to have income from participants where possible (e.g. fees for Gaelic classes, parental contributions towards school trips, tickets for concerts) and we may set conditions on our funding that a minimum level of income is received through such contributions if your application is successful.

You must ensure that no income from other Bòrd na Gàidhlig funding schemes, the Gaelic Arts Fund run by Fèisean nan Gàidheal, Seachdain na Gàidhlig’s Small Grants Fund or Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s Delivery Partners is used to pay for any expenditure for the project. We may also decline your application, reduce a grant amount awarded or decline to fund part of your project if this would involve paying an organisation for costs we already fund. Any grant awarded to organisations supported via our Gaelic Officers Scheme cannot be used towards any staff costs.

All projects that pay wages or fees to those delivering the project must pay at least the real Living Wage (currently £12.60 per hour, rising to £13.45 from 1 May 2026) and any appropriate industry rates. If using industry rates in your budget, please include information about who set the rates and a link to verify this information.

In-kind/volunteer costs are permitted as part of a contribution towards total project costs. Any in-kind support for volunteered time can be calculated with a minimum value of the real Living Wage or an appropriate industry rate, if available, and should be budgeted as both income and expenditure.

We will not support project costs relating to:

• Organisation start-up or ongoing running costs
• Costs relating to running, attending or taking part in the Royal National Mòd or local Mòds
• Fèisean activities/events funded by Fèisean nan Gàidheal grant
• Air travel (except for Colmcille-related projects)
• Equipment costs of over £500 in total
• Competition prizes
• Delivery of the school curriculum
• Ongoing regular early years sessions
• Party political activities

Project monitoring and evaluation

If your application is successful you will need to monitor and evaluate your project delivery and show the impact of the project in reports requested from you. At a minimum we will ask all projects to note how many people take part in the project and to ask participants (or a sample of participants for large events/projects) for feedback on the impact of the project on their usage, learning or opinion of Gaelic.

In the application form we’ll ask you how you intend to monitor the project, what targets you will use to assess whether the project is successful, and how you will gather feedback from participants.

All funded projects will be required to submit a final report and if your project is expected to last for over 12 months, you will be required to complete a progress report approximately halfway through your project’s duration. We may ask for more regular reporting if we feel this is necessary.

In your reports, you will be asked to provide a summary of activities, explain any changes to your project from what you set out in the application, provide information as to how you are achieving targets/conditions set out in your letter of offer, provide an account of project income/expenditure and related evidence and also to confirm how you are implementing Fair Work requirements.

Reports will be available to submit via the Fluxx grants portal at https://bng.fluxx.io, and will be viewable if your application is approved.

How will we be paid?

If your application is successful, we will pay an instalment of your grant up-front after you return your signed acceptance of the grant and fulfil any other conditions we set, such as submitting end of project reports for previous grants. You will receive further instalments after you submit progress or final reports to us.

Instalment amounts will be based on your project’s requirements, but typically for projects of a duration of up to 12 months you will be paid 80% of the grant at the start of your project and up to 20% after submitting your final report, and for projects of 12 months or over you will receive 40% of the grant at the start of the project, 50% of the grant after submitting the progress report due around the half-way point of your project, and up to 10% after submitting your final report.

Please note that projects are funded on a break-even basis, so that you will be required to return to us any Bòrd na Gàidhlig funding that is not utilised in completion of the project, and we may vary the payment amounts if it appears you will not require the full amount.

Acknowledgement of funding

As a public body it’s important to us that the public know where our funding is spent, and that’s why it’s important that you acknowledge where appropriate that Bòrd na Gàidhlig provided funding for your project. If your application is successful, you will be required to acknowledge our grant in various ways throughout the project and to provide information to us in your reporting as to how you have carried this out.

For further information please read our Acknowledgement Guidance and our Brand Guidance on our website.

 

Social and Other Responsibilities

Bòrd na Gàidhlig has a responsibility to promote good practice in:

• Reducing impact on the environment
• Promoting equality of opportunity for those with a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act 2010
• Promoting opportunities for young people who are, or have been, in care under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014

We would like the organisations and projects that we fund to also consider how their work can contribute to these aims and will ask in the application form how your proposed project will seek to do so.

For further information, please consult the links below:

• Information on how to calculate and reduce carbon emissions via Culture for Climate Scotland
• Information about the protected characteristics under the Equalities Act 2010
• About Corporate Parenting and supporting care-experienced young people

Fair Work

Organisations in receipt of public funding in Scotland are required to adhere to the Scottish Government’s Fair Work First policy, and as such must:

• Pay at least the real Living Wage; and
• Provide appropriate channels for effective workers’ voice, such as trade union recognition

You will be asked as part of your application and reporting to confirm that you are adhering to the policy and provide evidence of doing so.

Further guidance as to how Bòrd na Gàidhlig is implementing the Fair Work First policy is available here, and guidance from the Scottish Government on the policy is available here.

Protecting vulnerable groups

If your project will involve working with children, protected adults or both, you must ensure that anyone operating in a “regulated role” is a member of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme, as this is a legal requirement.

Please note that for some organisations that solely work with children or vulnerable adults, committee members/trustees may be required to hold a PVG membership for the organisations.

You will be asked as part of your application if you intend to work with children or protected adults, and to confirm how you will ensure that you will comply with these requirements by providing a child protection or safeguarding policy. Your application may be declined if it is not sufficiently clear that you will comply with your legal requirements.

If you have any questions about how this will apply to you, please contact us as soon as possible at tabhartas@gaidhlig.scot.

Subsidy Control

As a public body, Bòrd na Gàidhlig must comply with the subsidy control rules as a result of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the UK Government and the European Union. More information can be found on the UK Government’s website.

As part of assessing your application, we will need to assess whether the grant would be classed as a subsidy and will ask questions in the application form to help us determine this.

If you are awarded a grant that is deemed as a subsidy, you will need to ensure that you comply with Subsidy Control rules, with further guidance available at that stage.

 

Submitting an application

Applications should be submitted via our Fluxx application portal at bng.fluxx.io. An account can be registered for free on the website and it is possible to save the progress of an application whilst working on it. All supporting documents can be submitted via the portal.

The application portal will close at 3pm on Wednesday 10 December 2025 and it will not be possible to submit an application after this date unless permission has been provided by Bòrd na Gàidhlig officers.

Detailed support is available on our website as to what information we are looking for from each question.

If you have any issues with the portal, wish to receive the application materials in a different format, or have any questions about the application please email us as soon as possible at tabhartas@gaidhlig.scot.

When submitting your application, unless applying on behalf of a school, you must include the required supporting documents, as follows:

Organisations

Essential

• Constitution or Memorandum and Articles of Association
• Most recent annual accounts (if not a recently constituted organisation)
• A bank statement from the last three months, or if a new bank account has been opened in that period a letter to confirm this has been opened
• Child Protection or Safeguarding policy (if the project involves children or vulnerable adults)
• List of board or committee members (except for companies registered with Companies House)

Recommended (if available)

• Latest annual report
• Gaelic policy
• Equal opportunities policy or Equalities, diversity and inclusion policy
• Environmental policy or statement

Individuals

Essential

• CV
• Examples of previous work
• Child Protection or Safeguarding policy (if the project involves children or vulnerable adults)
• A bank statement from the last three months, or if a new bank account has been opened in that period a letter to confirm this has been opened
• Letter(s) of support from community organisation for the project

Applications which do not provide the required supporting documents (unless on behalf of a school) will be declared ineligible and will not be assessed.

 

How we will handle your application

You will receive an automatic email acknowledgment from the Fluxx portal to confirm that we have received your application. If you do not receive this, please check that you have submitted the application rather than only saving the application.

Bòrd na Gàidhlig officers will then screen applications after submission to ensure they comply with the rules of the fund and have provided required information. If your application is deemed ineligible for a technical reason, you will be asked to correct this (if this is considered possible). If your application is not fully compliant with the rules of the fund by 10am on Wednesday 7 January 2026 your application may be declined without assessment.

All eligible applications will be assessed by a panel of Bòrd na Gàidhlig officers according to the assessment guidance, and they will make recommendations to the Bòrd na Gàidhlig Senior Management Team who will decide on the outcome of applications.

Bòrd na Gàidhlig may request additional information or clarification of project details as part of the assessment process. If this additional information is not submitted within 10 working days of being requested we reserve the right to decline your application.

We expect that you will be informed of the result of your application by email in early February 2026.

If you have been awarded funding, a letter of offer will be sent via Docusign to your nominated signatory (or signatories if you are an organisation with staff and required to complete a Fair Work Declaration). You will have up to 30 days from the date of issue to accept the offer (including standard grant conditions, which are also available here) or the offer shall lapse. The letter of offer will also be accompanied by a bank details form to complete to confirm the details used to pay you.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your application, while we do not offer an appeal process you may make a complaint if you believe your application has not been dealt with in accordance with this guidance and the assessment guidance. For more information, our complaints handling procedure is detailed online here.

 

More information

For more information about this fund, please visit the Bòrd na Gàidhlig website or contact Bòrd na Gàidhlig at tabhartas@gaidhlig.scot.

You can also find answers to frequently asked questions about our funding on our website.

Privacy information relating to our funding schemes can be found on our website, and you will be required to confirm at the point of applying that you have read and accepted the terms included – particularly relating to publication of information about your grant if you are successful, and the requirements upon us under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Alternative forms of this guidance and application forms can be made available on request and may be published at: https://www.gaidhlig.scot/en/funding/funding-schemes/taic-freumhan-coimhearsnachd/

Edit history

v2 – 27 October 2025 – Update to real living wage figure based on 22 October announcement

v1 – 21 October 2025 – Published