Starting today (August 8), The Press’ parent company’s charitable arm, The Gannett Foundation, is providing £128,000 to support local charities across eight regions - and we are delighted to have an £16,000 share to give away in our local area.

We’re asking readers to nominate their favourite local charities to be considered for a grant - as we want you to decide how the funding should be spent.

Any person may nominate a charity, including a representative of the charity itself, but they should always give contact details for a representative of the nominated charity and a brief but clear explanation of how the money will be spent - such as a specific project or item of equipment, and how it will benefit the community.

Making a nomination couldn’t be easier – simply log-on to www.thepress.co.uk/readerschoice and fill in your nomination form. Applications must include an explanation of how the money will be spent, how it will benefit the community and how the project will be completed if the grant does not cover the full costs.

Once all nominations have been received, between September 12 and 25 we will select 10 of the most popular local charities to be featured in this year’s grants scheme.

We’re then going to put the power to allocate the cash back into the hands of our readers – for four weeks between October 24 and November 20, readers will be invited to collect tokens from our newspapers which can then be sent to collection points across our region or posted.

Each token collected will then be used to allocate cash to the nominated charity – so if your favourite charity collects 50 per cent of all the tokens collected, it will receive 50 per cent of the funding.

Entries must be registered charities and must not have received a grant from the scheme within the last two years.

Grants will not be awarded for payments such as salaries, professional fees or day-to-day running or maintenance costs or projects that do not bring benefits to local communities.

One of last year’s winners was York Rescue Boat – and the charity said it would spend the money on its educational outreach programme, which often works with young people.

Grants have been awarded in the past to York charities including Holgate Windmill, which used the money to buy equipment enabling it to produce flour, Citizens Advice York and The Regen Centre, a charity in Riccall which used the funding for its ‘Changing Places’ project - adapting one of its changing rooms at its community centre for people with disabilities.

To nominate your local charity, click here or send us details via the Send Now button below...