Application requirements for –
See also
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Grants policy guidelines
Categories eligible for grant
The Trust provides financial assistance to UK registered or exempt
charities whose activities fall within the following three categories:
- care of and services for blind people, and
the prevention and/or cure of blindness;
- long-term care of people with
learning disabilities
either: in a residential care or supported living environment in
a way that provides a family environment and wide choice of activities
and lifestyle; or: by providing long-term day/employment
activities;
- care of and services for people suffering from
cancer and their
families;
Other categories
A small proportion of the Trust’s income may be allocated to
assistance in other fields, but this is rare and reserved for causes that
have come to the attention of individual Trustees. It is therefore only in
very exceptional circumstances that the Trustees will respond favourably to
requests from organisations whose activities fall outside the categories
listed above.
Deadlines and guidelines
See first ‘How to apply’ and then read
the ‘Application Requirements’ for each field. If you do not
follow these guidelines, your application will not be considered.
Applications unlikely to succeed
The Trustees do not support:
- Organisations that are not registered charities (or properly exempt)
- General appeals or letters/mail-shots requesting donations (you must
follow our guidelines)
- Individuals, or charities applying on their behalf
- Grant-making organisations seeking funding for the purpose of
awarding grants to others
- Applications for less than £3,000
- Charities with a turnover of less than £50,000
- Charities with liquid (free) reserves covering more than 18 months’
expenditure unless they can clearly demonstrate that they are in
financial need
- Charities that do not yet have a track record of service delivery
(or other convincing evidence of ability)
- Ongoing running (including salaries) and core costs, ongoing
projects or services (although they will support an extension to
existing provision if additional cost is incurred), unless there is an
exceptional reason to do so and if you think this is the case you should
telephone the Grants Office to discuss before applying
- Projects which benefit people outside the UK,
except in
the blind field
- Projects which are complete (i.e. retrospective funding)
- Minibuses
- Academic research projects
- Campaigning or lobbying projects
- Work usually considered a statutory responsibility
- Items of equipment intended for use by the NHS
General
Grants vary in amount, but generally fall within the range of £3,000 to
£30,000. The total amount awarded varies from year to year according to
available funds. As a guide, in the year 2015–2016, 58 grants were awarded
from our normal programme totalling £686,300.
In the current financial climate, commitments to make future payments
are rarely given, with grants normally being
one-off annual grants. Charities which have received a grant are encouraged
to apply in the next and subsequent years, but should note that only rarely
will grants be given to the same charity for four successive years. This does not however mean that a
charity that has received three successive grants will not be eligible in future years,
just that we would not generally award a grant in year four.
Exceptional grants
The Trustees may occasionally consider larger
exceptional grants, but this is unusual and generally confined to charities that we
know well and have supported for some time. There is no separate application
process for this, and contenders will be identified from the normal grant
round. In the year 2015/2016, one grant of £91,000 was awarded from this
programme.
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