Guidance for applicants.

How to apply 

To apply for one of our grants, you’ll need to complete the relevant online application form which can be found on our website. 

If you need support to access the online form please contact our friendly Grants Team either by email or by phone 01273 409 440.

Supporting documents

All applicants must submit their supporting documents as electronic attachments to the application form before the deadline. We are unable to consider your application without this information.

The list of documents you need to provide is below:

For all applicants:

• a signed copy of your latest annual accounts or record of expenditure
• a copy of a bank statement from the last three months

For first time applicants only:

• a signed copy of your latest annual accounts or record of expenditure
• a copy of a bank statement from the last three months
• a signed copy of your constitution or set of rules (if you are a CIC, please also supply your CIC 34 report) 
• the names of management committee members, with cheque signatories identified
• Your equal opportunities policy, covering both the Equalities Act 2010 and the nine protected characteristics
• Other policies relevant to your work such as child protection or vulnerable adult protection policy, health and safety policy, environmental or sustainability policy
• if applying for a grant to purchase equipment, please send copies of written estimates or catalogue pages

If we need any further information after we have received your application, we will contact you. 

How often can I apply?

You can only make one grant application per round to our Main grants and only receive one grant in any twelve-month period. So, if you are successful, you can apply for our Main grants once per year. If you are unsuccessful, we encourage you to apply again in the next round (after getting feedback and support from our Grants Team). 

Our Additional grants have their own separate deadlines and requirements. You can normally apply for an Additional grant at the same time as applying for (or holding) one of our main grants.

What happens once you receive my application?

Once you have submitted your online form, you will receive an acknowledgement of your application by email.

When we receive your application, we will check that you are eligible and have supplied the information we need. The application will then be assessed against several set criteria in line with the questions in the application form. The assessment includes a review of the need in your local community, the project plan and budget, a set of measurable outcomes and evaluation tools and a plan to sustain the activity and/or support for beneficiaries going forward.  

Depending on the outcome of our assessment, your application will then be matched to our funds and presented to relevant donors and fund panels for consideration. Our Grants Committee then meets to consider all the applications and to allocate any further funds.  

How long is the process? 

This process takes about eight to 10 weeks and we will let you know the outcome of your application shortly afterwards.

When you submit your application, you will be agreeing to the Terms and Conditions detailed at the end of the form. The form will also ask you to provide the bank account details that you would like the grant to be paid into if your application is successful. If you are successful, you will receive the grant payment using these details. 

Monitoring

When your project is finished, we will ask you to complete an online monitoring report twelve months after your grant is awarded. You must submit your monitoring report before we can approve any further grants to you. Generally, this means you are eligible to make a new application after the deadline for your monitoring report. 

You will receive a link to your monitoring form when you are awarded your grant. In the form, we ask for similar information to the application form. You don’t need to submit detailed evidence of expenditure, although please do keep records of these as we may ask for this as part of our programme evaluations. 

The knowledge we gain from monitoring and evaluation is vital to us. We use this information to report back to our donors and funding partners. We also highlight good practice and share success stories in our communications and impact reports. This information helps shape the Foundation’s organisational learning and grant-making practice, so we really appreciate your time spent reporting back to us.

Download our Full Guidance here.