Here is a selection of current funding opportunities open for applications.
Comic Relief Community Fund in Wales
The Comic Relief Community Fund in Wales has £1.35m to distribute through two new grants to support community-led organisations.
Small grants
Grants of £1,000 to £10,000 are available for community groups leading change and growth in their locality, to help to meet the needs of the community. To be eligible to apply, organisations must have an income of less than £250,000.
Large grants
Grants of up to £60,000 are available to organisations with a social purpose to help to make a strategic impact and to increase their resilience.
Closing date for applications: 31 October 2019
The Thomas Howell’s Education Fund for North Wales
Schools and organisations who work with disadvantaged children and young people (school age to under 25) can apply for The Thomas Howell’s Education Fund for North Wales grants. The charity considers funding applications three times per year.
Grants are considered to improve educational opportunities available to young people in any of the six counties of north Wales (Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham):
- who are disadvantaged due to financial hardship
- who are disabled
- who have low aspirations, excluded, at risk or with lack of opportunity.
Business Wales Childcare Grant
Business Wales is offering childcare providers in Wales the opportunity to apply for a Childcare Grant. The purpose of the grant is to encourage the creation of new childcare places and new places for children with additional or special needs in Wales to support the Welsh Government’s 30 hour Childcare Offer.
Only childcare providers based and registered in Wales are eligible to apply. You will need to be registered with the Business Wales service and Care Inspectorate Wales to access the grant.
The Ragdoll Foundation – Open Grants Scheme
The Ragdoll Foundation’s Open Grants Scheme supports organisations working with children and young people using the arts and creative media. Grants of up to £50,000 are available but the majority of grants will be between £5,000 and £20,000.
The Foundation looks to support projects that:
- evidence the power of arts and creativity and their transformative power for children and young people
- promote children’s development through their imaginative thinking
- ensure effective evaluation of projects to promote sharing and learning
- demonstrate how the concerns of children can be heard.
The Ragdoll Foundation is interested in funding projects that will benefit children up to 10 years old but will consider projects that benefit young people up to 18 years old.
Wesleyan Foundation
Grants of up to £2,000 are available to groups and registered charities with an income of below £250,000 working in the city and county of Cardiff. The Wesleyan Foundation aims to provide support in the following areas:
- Health – projects working to improve the health and wellbeing of the local community
- Education – projects that work to promote education and lifelong learning
- Social – projects that create innovative solutions to social challenges, promoting community cohesion and developing resilience within communities.
Small charities, constituted not for profit groups and organisations running projects and activities for the benefit of their local community are eligible to apply for this grant.
Track 2000 Grant Legacy Fund
Track 2000 provides grants for registered small charities and voluntary groups who make a difference to individuals, families and communities in south Wales. Track 2000 can fund a project or organisation with between £5,000 to £35,000 for revenue or capital costs. Projects can last for up to two years.
Grants are available for:
- Education and training
- Environmental improvements
- Strengthening disadvantaged communities.
The Steve Morgan Foundation
The Steve Morgan Foundation supports projects that have a positive effect on people’s welfare or quality of life in North Wales, Merseyside, Cheshire and North Shropshire.
The Foundation offers a Main Grant Programme providing support to charities, organisations and community groups which help: children and families, the elderly, those with disabilities and the socially isolated.
For more information email or call 01829 782808
Foyle Foundation
The Foyle Foundation’s Small Grants Scheme is designed to support smaller charities in the UK, especially those working at grass roots and local community level, in any field, across a wide range of activities.
The Foyle Foundation plans to make one year grants of between £1,000 and £10,000 for core costs, equipment or project funding to charities which can show that such a grant will make a significant difference to their work.
Carriers for Causes
The One Stop’s ‘Carriers for Causes’ grants programme is funded through the money raised from the 5p bag charge in One Stop stores in England, Wales and Scotland. Grants of up to £1,000 are available for projects that benefit local communities within two miles of a One Stop store in Great Britain.
Projects must meet at least one of the following outcomes:
- Improving the lives of young people
- Improving the lives of the elderly
- Promoting physical activity
- Improving health or well being
- Increasing community safety
- Protecting or improving the local environment.
Examples of eligible projects include, but are not limited to:
- One off community events such as community fun day expenses, summer youth camp, day trips costs for community based clubs or organisations
- Purchasing items to run a project such as specialised medical equipment, arts and craft materials for a workshop, marketing materials for an event
- Improvements to community buildings such as painting, refurbishing buildings such as scout or guide huts, or community centres.
This is a rolling programme, and applications will be accepted throughout the year.
The BBC Children in Need Small Grants programme
The BBC Children in Need Small Grants programme offers funding of up to £10,000 over a three-year-period for charities or not-for-profit organisations supporting disadvantaged children or young people under 18.
The Small Grants programme has the same criteria as the Main Grants programme above.
Tesco Bags of Help
Bags of Help is Tesco’s local community grant scheme is being used to fund thousands of community projects across the UK. Bags of Help is now is always open to applications from community projects.
Following a shortlisting process three local community projects will be voted on in Tesco stores each month throughout England, Scotland and Wales. In each region, the project that received the most votes from all stores in their region will receive a grant of up to £5000. The second placed project receives up to £2000 and third placed up to £1000. Grants will be awarded to voluntary or community organisations (including registered charities/companies), schools, Parish/Town Councils and local authorities, and social housing providers.
Viridor and Prosiect Gwyrdd Community Fund
Community schemes across South Wales will be able to tap into a £50,000 funding pot every year over the next 25 years through a new green partnership. Viridor, the firm working with the 'Prosiect Gwyrdd' council partnership, has announced the launch of a new Community Fund to support projects across Caerphilly, Cardiff, Monmouthshire, Newport and Vale of Glamorgan.
Community associations and projects can apply for up to £3000.
Fields in Trust County Fund
Fields in Trust is offering grants to sites protected under the Queen Elizabeth II Fields Challenge.
Funding is available to projects that meet one of the following objectives:
- Increase participation in sport or play
- Improve facilities for sport and play
- Build community cohesion and well being
- Enhance the local environment
Examples of what Fields in Trust will fund include: playground equipment and improvements to existing facilities.
Funding remains available in both Scotland and Wales, as well as a number of counties in England.
Biffa Award
Biffa Award provides funding under the Recreation theme to projects that transform open spaces for the benefit of the community, providing them with more opportunities to become involved in recreational activity.
Examples of projects that fall under this category are green spaces, woodland walks, play areas, sports facilities and community gardens.
Small grants of between £250 and £10,000 available.
Santander Foundation’s Community Plus
UK registered charities with local projects that benefit disadvantaged people can apply for grants of up to £5,000 to help with the specific costs of local projects.
The funding is intended to assist with the cost of salaries, equipment and materials that are directly related to projects that benefit disadvantaged people in the applicant's local area. Santander wants to fund an entire element rather than make a contribution to a larger budget.
Nominations can be made at any time.
Archbishop of Wales Fund for Children
The fund has been set up to support children in need and their families and local communities. Successful applicants include community playschemes.
Grants can range from £100 to £5000.
The Board of Trustees meets on two occasions each year to consider applications.
The Yapp Charitable Trust
The Trust funds categories such as work with: elderly people; children and young people; people with disabilities or mental health problems; people trying to overcome problems such as addiction, abuse, relationship problems, a history of offending; and lifelong learning.
Applicants must have charitable status, have been constituted and operating for at least three years, and a normal turnover of less than £40,000 per year.
Awards grants up to £3,000 per year for up to three years
Morrisons Foundation
Registered charities working in England, Scotland or Wales can apply for grants to support new projects that directly improve the lives of local people or communities across Great Britain.
The funding is for projects that groups would like to get off the ground but for which they have no funding.
The projects should benefit the local community and can cover a wide range of areas including: health, education, arts and culture, community.
Although there are no set limits to the funding, previous grants have ranged from £5,000 to £20,000.
Garfield Weston Foundation
The Foundation provides funding for projects in the UK in the general fields of: education; arts; health; community; youth; religion and welfare. There are no specific priorities for funding and a wide range of charitable activity is supported.
The Foundation awards grants upwards of £1,000
Marsh Christian Trust
Grants of £250 to £4,000 are available to help small organisations across the UK to pay for various running costs, such as: volunteer expenses, training days and equipment maintenance.
The Trust is interested in funding charities working in the fields of:
- Literature, arts and heritage
- Social welfare
- Environmental and animal welfare
- Education and training
- Healthcare.
The Trust funds registered charities with an annual income of less than £250,000 that have been established for more than one financial year.
True Colours Trust UK Small Grants Programme
Grants of up to £10,000 are available for small charities and projects in the UK working to support disabled children and their families on a daily basis.
The Trustees would like to support:
- Specialised play equipment / access to play and leisure
- Hydrotherapy pools
- Multi-sensory rooms
- Mini buses
- Sibling projects
- Bereavement support
- Family support / parent-led peer support.