Frequently Asked Questions

We expect most grants to be in region of £50,000- £75,000.

For our main grants programme our upper limit is £200,000 although we would expect most grants to be significantly smaller than this and applications funded at this level would have to demonstrate exceptional impacts and an extremely close fit with our programme aims. The budget can cover up to five years, on average most projects are 1-2 years long.

We are a small team and so we encourage you to fully review our guidance documents and try our eligibility quiz before you get in touch but we are happy to help with your questions.

Yes – please see this page for details on how to speak to the team.

There is no time limit, you can apply again when you are ready. Please take note of the quarterly cut off dates for stage one applications as this is when we will next assess applications.

You can apply for core funding if we have funded you before and if the work as an organisation is a clear fit with our strategy and programmeme. It is advisable to speak to your Grants Manager before submitting an application.

No – our funding programme has reduced in size and we feel that the fairest way to distribute limited funds is to restrict applicants to one grant at a time. Some grantholders funded under our older programmes may have more than one grant in place currently – but going forward this will not be possible for new grants.

Yes if you have a reason, i.e. your organisation is very young or very small or isn’t constituted. We will carry out due diligence checks during our assessment so you we will ask you to talk through your financial health with us.

No but it is always welcomed. If you have it please state clearly who it is from/planned to be from and whether or not this funding is confirmed at the time you apply to us.

Yes, we have a policy of full cost recovery. Costs must be proportionate and you will need to be able to explain to us how you calculated this.

Yes, if the work intended has a focus on the UK and would have a significant impact on the UK economy.

We cannot accept supporting documents at stage one. At stage two we will ask for any documents required. Please limit what you send to us to what we actually ask for.

If you are successful we will send you some documents to complete in order to accept the grant. Once you have sent those back to us and we have confirmed that we have what we need you can start straight away. Following grantholder feedback we now pay our grantholders quarterly in advance. We will ask you to submit an invoice to us to claim your funds. At the end of each quarter we will ask you to reconcile your spend and will need this before the next quarter’s payment can be released.

We try to provide a high-level of customer service and be responsive to your needs, within the resourcing and operational constraints we have to operate to. Should you be unhappy with the way your application or grant is being administered, please raise this with your main contact in the first instance, who will try to put things right. If you are unhappy with the way in which your contact has tried to address your concerns and would like to raise a formal complaint, please write to the Foundation Director, who will try to resolve the matter. If your complaint relates to the Foundation Director, please write to the Chair of the Foundation. You can see more about our complaints procedure.

Yes – we fund charities, social enterprises and private companies. Whilst the organisation funded does not have to be a charity the activity you are applying for has to be charitable in its nature. For more guidance on this please refer to the application guidance document and our eligibility quiz to test this.

Yes, we have processes in place to allow us to support non-constituted organisations which we would discuss with you as part our assessment process. This could include for example using a fiscal host to hold your grant for you.

No – we do not expect every project to touch all four D’s equally or at all. Some project may have a very big impact on one particular area but not really impact on the other three. Others may have an impact across a few or all of them. We will note this information to help us have a sense of how the projects we fund meet the 4Ds across the board, but each project will be judged on its own merits, rather than held to this framework.

Yes – as long as the new grant won’t start until after your current grant ends. Whilst you can’t (apart from under exceptional circumstances) hold more than one grant at a time, we recognise that the time it takes to apply for further funding means that you may need to apply for more funding before your current grant ends. If you have any concerns about this please speak to the team.

We pay our grants on a quarterly basis – the payment schedule allows us to see how much you would like to claim at what point. Some people may just want the grant to be split equally over the quarters but others may have frontloaded cost, or expect costs to ramp up as the project goes on.

Send an invoice to [email protected] copying in your grants manager. After you have made your first claim you will need to send a breakdown of how you have spent the previous quarter’s money and a short update on your activities. This will be needed before the next claim can be released.