Search by Keyword:

Communitybuilders Fund

The Communitybuilders Fund provides loans, grants and business support to multi-purpose, inclusive, community-led organisations. There are three elements to the Communitybuilders programme:

• Development - business support and leadership grants of £2000 for staff development and training
  
• Feasibility - business support and grants of up to £20,000 for project development
  
• Investment - loans of between £50,000 and £2,000,000 with favourable terms for organisations who are ready to develop, grow and expand their role within the community

The C Charitable Trust

The Trust is open to applications from organisations across the spectrum of the Third Sector. It does not make grants or donations to individuals. It has a wide range of charitable objectives.

The Lotus Foundation

The Lotus Foundation's primary objectives are to offer financial aid and assistance to facilitate family and child welfare, women's issues, animal protection, addiction recovery and education.

Abbey Charitable Trust

Abbey Charitable Trust is committed to supporting local communities and disadvantaged people, particularly in those areas where Abbey has a significant prescence. They can only fund projects that meet one (or more) of the following three priorities to help disadvantaged people: education and training; financial advice to help people manage their money; community regeneration. Most awards will be between £500 and £4000. However, in those areas where they have a Community Partnership Group you can apply for up to £20,000 (Camden, Milton Keynes, Bradford, Sheffield, Teesside, Glasgow, Belfast). Click on the link above.

Archer Trust

The Trust helps small UK charities which support needy or deserving people, for example people with physical or mental disabilities or the disadvantaged, and operating in areas of high unemployment. Grants are between £250 and £3000.

Baring Foundation

The Strengthening the Voluntary Sector - independence grants programme for 2008 is now open. This year the focus is on advice and advocacy organisations working in the cities of Bristol, Coventry, Manchester or Sheffield, or in the counties of Kent or Lincolnshire.

Big Lottery Fund: Awards for All

Awards for All is a Lottery grants scheme for local communities. There are different schemes for each of the four countries of the UK. Grants range from £300 to £10,000. For more information call the helpline on 0845 600 2040, or click on the link above.

Big Research Programme

The Big Lottery Fund will provide up to £25 million in the UK over 2007-2009 to fund social and medical research grants in the UK. The aim is to influence local and national policy and practice by funding the Third Sector to produce and disseminate evidence based knowledge. Only organisations from the voluntary and community sector will be eligible to apply for funding. The voluntary and community sector will be encouraged to link up with universities and the wider research community, but universities themselves will be ineligible to apply for funding. Help will be available to organisations that wish to do research, so that they have the skills and expertise to lead an application. This support is to be delivered by Third Sector First. A series of seminars for organisations interested in applying to the BIG Research programmed will be held early in 2008. Click on the link above.

Bodfach Trust

The Bodfach Trust makes grants to organisations that are involved in a range of activities, including help for young people throughout the UK. Although applications are open to organisations throughout the UK, preference is given to organisations operating in Wales.

Boots Charitable Trust

The Trust's charitable giving focuses on organisations benefiting the county of Nottinghamshire and the neighbouring borough of Erewash. The Trust's funding priorities are as follows: Health; Lifelong Learning; Community Development; Social Care (including family support groups); Social Preventive Schemes; Community Social Activities. For more information email.

BT Community Website Builder

BT Community Website Builder allows registered UK charities, non-profit making organisations and volunteer led groups or organisations to build and maintain their own website free of charge, all you need is a computer, an internet connection and a web browser. This scheme is operated by BT Volunteering and IK Software Limited. To qualify for use of the free service your organisation must be from the UK, be providing a clear benefit to the local community, and be one of the following: Registered charity, Non-profit making organisation, Volunteer led group or organisation.

Campaign for Learning

Runs the Family Fusion project, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, providing free advice and support to develop family learning opportunities. They offer help with accessing funding and creating new provision for the families in your area. For further information phone 0121 773 3133.

Charities Information Bureau

The Charities Information Bureau website has been improved, extended and badged as fit4funding. The website has moved from www.cibfunding.org.uk. The new website has even more information in the Help & Advice sections. All these pages are now downloadable in Acrobat pdf format for you to print out and use offline. You are encouraged to use this information to get help with the funding process.

Charles Hayward Foundation

The Charles Hayward Foundation is a charitable trust that make grants to UK charities and charitable organisations. The Foundation sees the value in supporting activities which have been demonstrated to work and can be replicated. They predominantly fund capital costs. Occasionally, project funding may be offered for start-up or development activities where these are not part of the ongoing revenue requirement of the organisation. They place great emphasis on funding projects that are developmental or innovative. They also value projects that are preventive or provide early intervention. Their preferred area of impact is at the community and neighbourhood level.

Children in Need

BBC Children in Need is offering small grants of up to £10,000 a year for three years for third sector organisations working with children and young people. Grants will be allocated in several rounds, with application deadlines on 15 April, 15 July and 15 October 2010.

City Parochial Foundation

Offers grants to registered charities or charitable organisations in the Metropolitan Police District of London that aim to tackle the causes of poverty and help poor Londoners to cope with and find ways out of poverty. In particular they want to fund work which helps by reducing or overcoming discrimination; isolation and violence.

Co-operative Foundation Community Support Programme

The Co-operative Foundation is keen to support community and voluntary sector activity through grants to local groups and organisations across its trading area (North West, South Cumbria, Yorkshire, North Midlands & Staffordshire, Northern Ireland, and North Wales). It is particularly interested in locally led and run groups which can demonstrate evidence of co-operative values and principles: self-help, equality, democracy, concern for the community. The community can be geographically based such as a village, town or housing estate, or could be a community of people brought together to address a specific issue. Grants are available for between £500 and £30,000. The Foundation has established objectives and assessment criteria for applicants. The next date for receipt of applications is 7 December.

Coalfields Regeneration Trust

The Coalfields Regeneration Trust gives grants to groups, organisations and agencies in England, Scotland and Wales who can show that their project or activity benefits a coalfield community. As a charity, the Trust will not usually support established private businesses. The Trust is always open to good ideas, but as a guideline, funded categories include: providing community support and facilities and life-long learning. If you are thinking of applying to the Trust, please contact your nearest Trust Office, where the Regeneration Manager can check your eligibility and give you advice on your application. For further information and regional contacts click on the link above.

Comic Relief

The programme areas for the 2005-2008 UK grants are: Young People; Older People; Mental Health; Refugees & Asylum Seekers; Domestic Violence and Disadvantaged Communities. Guidelines can be downloaded from the Comic Relief website on the link above.

Community Foundations

Community foundations are charities located across the UK dedicated to strengthening local communities, creating opportunites and tackling issues of disadvantage and exclusion. Community foundations target grants that make a genuine difference to the lives of local people. The Community Foundation Network (CFN) represents the community foundation movement in the UK. Their aim is to help clients create lasting value from their local giving through the network of community foundations. It is one of the largest funders of community organisations in the UK (making grants of over £70 million a year). All applications need to be made to a local foundation, they do not handle any grant applications at CFN's national office. Each community foundation has its own grant-making policy, criteria and time-scales for dealing with grant applications, drawn up to reflect community priorities.

Cranfield Trust

Cranfield Trust volunteers provide one-to-one consultancy to charities local to them. To qualify for their help, charities, social enterprise or community interest companies must be working to address issues of poverty, disability or social exclusion. During the current economic downturn many charities are facing very uncertain times. The Cranfield Trust can help by offering support with projects in the following key areas:

• Financial management
  
• Business planning
  
• Human resources issues
  
• Change management and restructuring
  

They have a pool of over 600 highly skilled professionals ready to work with your organisation to help you manage effectively during these challenging times.

Dr Scholl Foundation

The Dr Scholl Foundation is US based but will fund activities outside of the US. Funding can be sought for a wide range of activities but preference is given to projects that relate to:

• Education
• Children and young people
• Elderly people
• Social welfare
• Health
• Activities inspired by religion.

Esmee Fairbairn Foundation

The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation Main Fund provides funding across the broad range of their interests, which are: the cultural life of the UK, education and learning, the natural environment and enabling disadvantaged people to participate more fully in society. 

They prioritise work that:

• Addresses a significant gap in provision
• Develops or strengthens good practice
• Challenges convention or takes a risk in order to address a difficult issue
• Tests out new ideas or practices
• Takes an enterprising approach to achieving its aims
• Sets out to influence policy or change behaviour more widely

Ford Britain Trust

The Ford Trust supports a wide range of charitable activities, but focusing particularly on projects relating to education, environment, children, the disabled, youth activities and projects that provide clear benefits to the local communities close to Ford UK locations. Small grants for amounts up to £250 are available four times a year. Large grants for amounts over £250, and usually up to a maximum of £3000, are considered by the trustees twice a year.

Next deadline for small grants is 2 March 2010
Next deadline for large grants is 4 May 2010

Give it Sum Fund North Staffordshire

The Robbie Williams Give it Sum Fund is open to a broad range of self-help projects, community groups and voluntary organisations based in North Staffordshire. The fund aims to support local people to find solutions to local problems.

The fund welcomes applications from groups working in all sections of the community, particularly those who have struggled with finding funding in the past. All groups and projects will need to show how they are involving the people who use their services and facilities in planning, running and reviewing their work. Their annual income must be less than £150,000 per year.

Grants are for up to two years and will not usually be more than £15,000 for each year.

HBOS Foundation

The HBOS Foundation operates as an independent company and works with charitable and not-for-profit organisations across the UK, supporting people and their local communities. They provide funding for both national and local projects. For more information and to apply click on the link above.

Jack Goldhill Charitable Trust

The Jack Goldhill Charitable Trust offers grants to charities and community groups for general charitable purposes.

John Laing Charitable Trust

The John Laing Charitable Trust supports charities which support the following activities:

• Education
• Community Regeneration
• Disadvantaged young people
• Homelessness - with a particular emphasis on day centres
• Environment

Grants of between £250 and £25,000 are available with up to 12 charities receiving more than £10,000. Usually, charities receive one-off donations, but a small number are supported for an agreed period, often up to three years. 

Joseph Rowntree Foundation

JRF initiates programmes of research, commissioning and managing most projects, and disseminating the research findings to appropriate audiences to influence change. The Foundation seeks to fund research and development which has the capacity to change policy or practice for the better. The work is divided into a number of priority areas, each of which is supported by a specialist research committee. There are two core committees focusing on poverty and disadvantage, and on housing and neighbourhoods. There are also a number of themes and developments supported by committees which will fund projects for around three years. To date JRF Trustees have agreed to support work on drugs and alcohol; the governance of public services, differences in parenting, independent living and immigration and inclusion. Occasionally they will consider proposals arising from an unsolicited approach.

Kelly Family Charitable Trust

The Trust is interested in providing support to local community projects that will provide direct benefit to, and make a difference to, the lives of people in the immediate vicinity. The trust will consider both capital and revenue grants and is particularly interested in innovative projects and in projects that work in partnership with other local activities. The Trust will support applications for core funding from relatively new organisations to help them become established. Only registered charities need apply, there will be no grants to individuals, national charities or general appeals. Initial applications should be confined to two sides of A4 paper. The submission should outline: the history and purpose of the charity; the total cost of the activity for which the grant is required; the level of grant requested and on what it will be spent; amount of funding currently in place; how the project will benefit the community and how the results of the project will be measured. Applications should be supported by annual accounts where available. Grants will generally be given in the range of £1000-£5000 but will occasionally be in excess of that. Email applications to S Armstrong.

Leeds Building Society Charitable Foundation

Leeds Building Society Charitable Foundation was established by the Society in 1999 to support the communities around its nationwide network of branches by making donations to charities working in those areas. Applications will normally only be considered from registered charities. Generally, they will consider applications for community based projects which aim to provide relief of suffering, hardship or poverty, or their direct consequences. The project must operate in the area of one of their 57 branches. Church projects will be considered only where they involve community outreach and benefit, (for instance, supporting the homeless, disadvantaged families). Donations are normally in the range of £100 to £1000. The application must be for capital expenditure. In order to keep costs down, there is no application form. The Trustees meet quarterly in March, June, September and December.

Lloyds TSB Foundation

The Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales has unveiled a new look website with a clear step-by-step guide to the application process, a range of case studies and reports on current grants, and a new guide to generating publicity. The Foundation wants to make the application process very straightforward by providing as much information as possible. It supports charities that help disadvantaged people to play a fuller role in the community. Click on the link above.

London Councils Grants

London Councils’ members invest £28m a year funding over 300 voluntary organisations. All of the grants they make seek to improve the lives of people who live in, work in and visit London. Commissioning themes include:

• Children & Young People
• Crime Reduction
• Health & Social Care
• Homelessness
• Legal & Advice
• Violent Crime

Lottery Funding Website

Lottery Funding is a joint website run by all Lottery funders in the UK. This site allows you to search information on current funding programmes across the UK. The funding search will help you to find the funding programmes that best match your project. It will search programmes offered by Lottery funders that are currently open to applications. The funding search will take you through a series of four questions about: the location of your project; you the applicant; the project itself; the amount of money you are applying for.

Noel Buxton Trust

The Noel Buxton Trust makes grants to charities active in the following areas:

• The welfare of children in disadvantaged families and of children in care. This will normally cover families with children of primary school age and younger, although work with children in care will be considered up to the age at which they leave care.
  
• Penal reform, the welfare of prisoners and their families, rehabilitation of prisoners and work with young people at risk of offending.
  

The Trust is a small one and seldom makes grants of more than £4000, often considerably less. Apply by letter, setting out the reasons why a grant is being requested. Applications should include the applicant’s charity registration number and the name of the organisation to which cheques should be made payable if different from that at the head of the appeal letter. Please include with your application: budget for current and following year; details of funding already received, promised or applied for from other sources; latest annual report/accounts in the shortest available form.

Contact: The Secretary, The Noel Buxton Trust, P O Box 393, Farnham Surrey GU9 8WZ

Peter De Haan Charitable Trust

This grant is for helping children and young people in need, and is available to charities and community groups throughout the UK. The current focus of the Trust’s Social Welfare programme is on children and young people. Projects aimed at early intervention and addressing community and family issues are particularly encouraged. In addition projects should have continuity and should seek to help beneficiaries back into mainstream society.

Prisoners' Families

The Nationwide Foundation is offering grants to charities that offer support for prisoners' families and for the rehabilitation of young offenders. The Small Grants Programme offers grants of up to £5000 to regsitered charities across the UK that have an income of under £500,000. Click on the link above.

ProHelp

ProHelp is a national network of over 1,000 professional firms - lawyers, accountants etc. - who give their time and expertise for free to local community groups and voluntary organisations.

Scurrah Wainwright Charity

The Scurrah Wainwright Charity funds projects in England, primarily in Yorkshire and the North of England. It looks for innovative work in the field of social reform, with a preference for ‘root-cause’ rather than palliative projects. It favours causes that are less mainstream, and less likely to be funded by other charities. It will fund core costs. It will repeat-fund as well as making one-off grants. As general guidance grants for work within the UK are between £200 and £5000 per year. The trustees meet three times a year - in March, July and November - and applications must be submitted by 1 February, 1 June or 1 October respectively. For more information click on the link above.

The Andor Charitable Trust

The The Andor Charitable Trust supports UK charitable organisations which are engaged in:

• Medical and ancillary services
  
• Education
  
• Helping elderly people
• Helping disabled people
• Relief of poverty
• Developing the Arts

The Archer Trust

The Trust helps small UK charities which support needy or deserving people, for example people with physical or mental disabilities or the disadvantaged, and operating in areas of high unemployment. Grants are between £250 and £3000.

The Morgan Foundation

The Morgan Foundation was created in 2001 by businessman Steve Morgan OBE, founder and former chairman of Redrow plc and now chairman of Harrow Estates plc and the Bridgemere Group of Companies. Its purpose is to support charities across North Wales, Merseyside, West Cheshire and North Shropshire. Their philosophy is ‘making a difference’. Their aim is to provide funding for small to medium sized organisations who are addressing specific needs in these regions. They are particularly keen to support those who have already begun to make an impact, but need a helping hand to expand their work and increase their effectiveness. They focus their help mainly on those who work directly with children and families, but they recognise that many wider issues may also affect their welfare so they are interested in any project which contributes to the quality of life of the people in their region.

The Sir Cliff Richard Charitable Trust

The Sir Cliff Richard Charitable Trust makes quarterly grants to registered charities. Priority is given to charities working in medical research, with children and the elderly, and those involved with the physically and/or mentally disabled. Though charities which focus on other charitable activities are also encouraged to apply.

Triangle Trust 1949 Trust Fund

The Trust aims are to help organisations work to:

• alleviate poverty and promote good health and welfare
• advance education
• address charitable purposes as the Trustees may determine (except for the advancement of religion).
  

The current categories for support are:

• Carers
  
• Community Arts & Education
• Disability
• Older People
• Integration and Rehabilitation
• Poverty

Various funding available to UK registered charities.

Trust for London

Trust for London is an independent charitable trust set to support small, new and emerging voluntary organisations which have been established to improve the lives of people and communities in London. They will fund areas of work which have one (or more) of the following aims: to challenge discrimination faced by disabled people; to promote the inclusion and integration of recently established communities; to strengthen mother-tongue and supplementary schools to provide creative educational opportunities; to address new and emerging needs. The maximum you can apply for is £15,000 per year, although the average grant will be approximately £8,000 in total. In addition, they will also make a smaller number of grants to organisations that want to increase their staffing levels in order to make a step change in their development. There are 3 deadlines a year: 7 February for the June meeting; 30 May for the October meeting; and 25 October for the February meeting. For more information click on the link above.

Tudor Trust

The Tudor Trust is most interested in helping smaller, under resourced organisations which offer direct services and which involve the people they work with in their planning. The groups they fund don’t have to be registered charities; they can also make grants to other groups as long as they can show them how they would use their grant for charitable purposes. There is no maximum or minimum grant amount. Grants can take the form of core funding (including salaries and running costs), development funding, project grants or capital grants for buildings or equipment. Some of the other characteristics they are looking for when they make grants include:

• organisations which are embedded in and have developed out of their community – whether the local area or a ‘community of interest’
• organisations providing direct services to marginalised people
  
• a focus on building stronger communities by overcoming isolation and fragmentation and encouraging inclusion, connection and integration
  
• high levels of user involvement, and an emphasis on self-help where this is appropriate
  
• work which addresses complex and multi-stranded, often difficult, problems in unusual or imaginative ways
• organisations which are thoughtful in their use of resources and which foster community resilience in the face of environmental, economic or social change
• organisations and people who know what difference they want to make and have the energy and vision to make it happen.

UIA Charitable Foundation

The Foundation supports small organisations or groups where a modest grants would make a real difference to managing a project. The activities it will support include those focusing on: victims of domestic abuse; victims of drug and alcohol addiction and rehabilitation of offenders. Grants of up to £1000 are available.

Venturesome

There may be times when a charity has plans to develop, or needs bridging finance. Its requirements may be too risky for a bank loan or outside the criteria of a grantmaker. Venturesome, an initiative of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), is a social investment fund with funds to invest. It helps charities and other social purpose organisations to think through their funding needs, providing tailored capital investment where appropriate. The capital helps organisations manage the timing of income and expenditure, enabling them to act quickly where there is uncertainty over future income, and helping to develop and grow products and services. CAF recognises that capital investment is necessary but difficult to access and is currently looking for charities to invest in.

Vodafone UK Foundation

The foundation, a registered charity, has launched a call to action for charities to apply for Reach, its flagship funding programme. This will provide £5m of funding across three years for work helping 16-25 year olds facing exclusion from society. To be eligible, charities must apply in collaboration - either in pairs or wider groups.

Volant Charitable Trust

The Volant Trust has two broad areas of funding:

• Research into the causes, treatment and possible cures of Multiple Sclerosis
• Charities and projects that alleviate poverty and social deprivation

The Trust is currently committed to several long-term Multiple Sclerosos research projects and is not considering further applications for funding in this area at the present time. Social deprivation activities should have a particular emplasis on women's and children's issues.

Wakeham Trust

The Wakeham Trust, established in 1973, provides grants to help people rebuild their communities. They are particularly interested in neighbourhood projects, community arts projects, projects involving community service by young people, or projects set up by those who are socially excluded. They also support innovative projects to promote excellence in teaching although they never support individuals. Click on the link above.

Wates Foundation

The Foundation aims to alleviate distress and improve the quality of life by promoting a broad range of social priorities that include the physical, mental and spiritual welfare of the young and disadvantaged aged 5-25; the rehabilitation of offenders; community integration and cohesion; and the addressing of substance misuse.

Guidelines for their new responsive grant making programme will be posted on their website below from mid November 2008. They will be accepting appropriate applications from 1 December 2008. Any applications received before that date will be rejected.

The new programmes will cover a wider geographic area across Southern England than has previously been the case.