We are delighted to share with you some funding opportunities.  Don’t forget that we can support you in completing applications, so please get in touch if you need our help!

The Ashworth Charitable Trust The Ashworth Charitable Trust is a small grant-making charity. It was created primarily to support humanitarian causes operating locally, nationally and internationally, as opposed to animal or utilitarian projects. For the most part, the Trust looks to fund projects and not core funding.

The Trust prefers to help fund humanitarian projects and activities that share this vision and that have any of these characteristics:

• The project or activity has been initiated by people living at the grassroots who are empowered to find the solutions to their own problems;
• The project has a relatively simple, clear set of objectives and actions that further the vision of the Trust;
• The project develops the capacity of individuals, their communities or their institutions helping them to help themselves;
• The project enhances the learning of individuals, their communities or their institutions;
• The project’s ‘beneficiaries’ participate in the management and running of the project or activity; and
• The project’s ‘beneficiaries’ have suffered, or are suffering, from injustice, poverty or personal circumstances that are difficult for the individual to overcome without assistance.

John Ellerman Foundation

We aim to help create an inclusive society where all can thrive, by supporting organisations which work to create positive changes at a systems-wide level benefitting wider society.

We believe it is people working together who create change. We are interested in organisations with a track record that tackle divisions and inequity, and who bring together individuals, community organisations and others, including national bodies, to influence government and the agencies that shape our lives.

What we fund

We want to support those with ambition to achieve positive change at scale while also creating benefits for those involved. We will therefore concentrate our funding in pursuit of a thriving society on work which does both of the following:

1. Actively involves those with personal experience of the issue tackled – reflecting our belief that those with direct personal experience of the issue/s understand them best and should have the agency and support to use their expertise, understanding and insights to drive forward the organisation’s work. We want them to be able to do this in a supportive environment that is committed to their success. We do not expect disclosures of an individual’s personal experience in applications, if this information is not already publicly known or available. We also value the importance of the expertise and insight of those that work alongside individuals and communities with personal experience.

and

2. Improves systems through policy, advocacy and campaigning – by influencing change and progress on the issues that an organisation is seeking to tackle and securing the rights that are due to the individuals it supports. This could include: collecting and using evidence; connecting people and the establishment; creating opportunities for contact, dialogue and meaningful engagement; or designing and imagining effective strategies and tactics for influencing; and using these approaches to advocate or campaign for improving policies, practices and systems.

We expect a variety of individuals and communities experiencing a range of inequities and discrimination to benefit from our funding. Given this broad canvas, we prioritise work which tackles the greatest barriers created by divisions and inequity. We look to fund work that is explicitly focused on the widest possible benefit across different systems, rather than service delivery.

Edge Fund

Edge Fund began from the ground up as a participatory grant making fund in 2012. The people who set it up had experience as activists or funders, and many as both. If community organising and community development could involve the people affected by decisions, then why couldn’t funding happen the same way?

The capitalist system and the culture surrounding it creates winners and losers. It’s time for the voices of those who have been oppressed and marginalised. If we continue to leave decisions about funding to those who hold the wealth and power, real system change will not occur.