This is one of 3 Charity Excellence funding finder downloads, the other 2 being the US and International. There are also 50+ downloadable funder lists, with 1000s of grant makers, that do the hard work for you. Everything is free. Download from the income questionnaire – the finding new funders assessment statement. This list was last updated Dec 20.
Here’s a Charity Excellence Framework guide - 20+ ways to find new funding and another on how to write a compelling funding case for support. Find more in the fundraising area of the Resource Hub.
General
1. Charity Commission - funders are usually charities. Use the advanced search function.
a. Registration Details – select ‘Registered’ and then insert the dates you want to search.
b. How The Charity Helps – select ‘Makes grants to individuals’ and/or ‘Makes grants to organisations’.
c. Under this section, click the option for ‘Main way of carrying out purposes is grant making’.
d. Other Criteria – select any you want to refine your search.
Then click search. As long as you have less than 10,000 results, you will find an ‘Export Results’ button at the bottom of the page. It’s all a bit ‘clunky’, but I’ve used this to create the various research funder lists, so you may wish to start with these.
2. Beehive Giving - matches your project to funders, charity run, but you only get 3 funder matches free, albeit not expensive.
3. Funding Finder - Big Lottery funding programmes search tool.
4. Celebrities – many have their own foundations.
5. Esmee Fairbairn – list of funders.
6. Funding For All – A Kent & Medway charity, but lists grants for a whole range of criteria, useful for anyone
7. Funding Central – NCVO grants and contracts funding database, free if income under £100k.
8. Grin - not free, but only £15 pa.
9. Grant Nav - includes directories for different sectors to make your search easier.
10. Get Grants – funding lists, including capital, faith, sports, disability, education, employment, health, vulnerable groups, blah.
Arts and Culture
11. Arts Council - funding finder.
12. Arts Council – other sources of funding for the arts.
13. Heritage Funding Directory - a free guide to financial support for anyone undertaking UK related heritage projects.
14. IETM - funding finder arts and culture in Europe.
15. Local Councils – many have community and charity funds.
16. London Livery Companies – There are 110, which make grants for a wide range of causes.
17. Musicians - Help Musicians funding wizard.
18. Universal Music UK Sound Foundation - 100+ funders for musicians.
19. Nesta – Arts & Culture Finance – our funds.
20. Voluntary Arts – funding finder.
Churches
21. Parish Resources – lists of capital, digital and fundraising guides and lists of church funders.
22. How to raise money for maintaining, repairing and developing church buildings via the ChurchCare website.
23. National Churches Trust – range of grants for supporting UK places of worship of historic, architectural and community value used by Christians.
24. The Christian Funders Forum - trusts and foundations that grant more than £30 million a year to Christian work.
25. Cinnamon Network – micro grants and other support for churches.
Disability
26. Disabled Children - grants to families.
27. Disability Grants – searchable – equipment, families, children, holidays.
28. Sky Badger – a great charity, with information for families on applying for grants and statutory entitlements.
Environmental
29. Environmental Funders Network – list of members.
Heritage
30. Historic England has a range of grants you can apply for.
31. The Architectural Heritage Fund publishes a free guide to sources of funding for historic buildings - Funds for Historic Buildings (FFHB).
32. Heritage Alliance Funding Directory - projects connected with the UK's heritage.
33. The Heritage Lottery Fund gives grants to sustain and transform our heritage. Find out more from the Heritage Lottery Fund website.
Sport
34. Sport Scotland
35. Sport England
36. Sport NI
37. Sport Wales
38. Leapwithus.org - sports funding finder, including by location, talented athlete, equipment, facilities, coaches' bursary and project.
39. London Sport Funding Search Tool
40. Most professional football and rugby clubs have charitable foundations.
41. Many players also have foundations, here are some football ones.
Individuals
42. Disabled Children - grants to families.
43. Turn2Us – benefits and charitable grants.
44. Charity Commission - advanced search function. Select ‘How the charity operates’ from the drop down menu and then click on ‘Makes grants to individuals’ box – there are more than 29,000.
45. Buttle.org – links to a whole range of charitable funders.
46. Money Saving Expert – wide range of charity, government and company grants for those on low incomes.
47. Wise Campaign - Organisations offering funding, bursaries, grants, awards and scholarships for women and girls in STEM.
Social Enterprises
48. Entrepreneur Handbook – list of UK small business grants
49. SSE – social enterprise funding.
50. Gov.UK – funding search tool.
51. CEF Social Enterprise Funders List – trusts/foundations, impact funding, grants, loans and contracts.
52. The Entrepreneur Handbook has a list of UK small business grants.
53. And here’s 150 of them.
54. GovGrantsHub - non-profit and business grants.
55. Grant Finder - government grants for companies.
56. Supply Change - platform for social enterprises to access public sector contracts.
57. West Midlands Combined Authority has pledged to spend 5% of its procurement budget on social enterprises; good on them.
Other Charity Sectors
58. Armed Forces – searchable database, including for organisation grants.
59. Consortium – LGBTQI+ funding opportunities list, but only available to members.
60. Edge Fund – list of funders similar to the Edge Fund, but a bit more formal, primarily social justice and marginalised groups, such as refugees.
61. Education - produced for Scotland, but includes national trusts, as well.
62. Grants4Schools - free searches, but full list only for paid subscribers.
63. Get Grants – schools funding finder list.
64. Scholarship Hub – ethnic minority scholarships.
65. Help Musicians – funding wizard.
66. My Community - grants for voluntary and community groups.
67. Princes Trust - list of funders for young people, including funding searches for scholarships, postgraduate, educational grants and more.
68. UKRI – research funding opportunities.
69. Welcome Foundation - grants scheme finder, mainly research, science and medicine.
UK Government
70. Community Grant Funding Finder - community-based funding and grants for projects.
71. Contracts Finder - public sector contracts and e mail alerts.
72. GovGrantsHub - non-profit and business grants.
73. Grant Finder - government grants for companies.
74. Innovation Funding - Government innovation competitions.
75. Open Ops - commercial, but contract data is free, claims to have more that Contracts Finder and it works globally.
76. And, did you know that Twitter has an advanced search facility? Or follow your favourite funders, so you hear about any new grants or changes to criteria immediately. Here are some of the big ones - @BigLotteryFund, @esmeefairbairn, @LBFEW, @comicrelief, @GarfieldWFdn, @BBCCiN, @wolfsonfdn, @SRausingTrust, @phf_uk, @thetudortrust, @RankFoundation.
UK Country/Region Specific
Scotland
77. OSCR (Scotland) – select Search Charity Register, then go to Additional Filters.
a. Next go to Activities and select Makes Grants, Organisations, or Individuals.
b. Select any other filters you want and then search.
c. You can use the Registered From – Registered To function to find new trusts.
78. Funding Scotland - database of Scottish funders.
79. SCVO – list of funders with details, always kept up-to-date.
80. Sport Scotland
81. Education - produced for Scotland, but includes national trusts, as well.
England & Wales
82. Charity Commission - advanced search function; see above. You can search by England or Wales, or London, and by various counties.
83. WCVA Funding Search - funding support in Wales.
84. Sport England
85. Sport Wales
Northern Ireland
86. CCNI – under How The Charity Operates, select Makes Grants. Then select any other filters to narrow your search.
87. Sport NI
88. Grant Tracker - funding toolkit.
Regional
89. DSC - directories and online databases. These are normally paid for but, if you visit their London office, you can have free access. However, please contact them in advance.
90. Local Councils - search facility to find links to your local council for community project funding. England and Wales only.
91. London Grant Finders – list of available grants and a fund finder.
92. Manchester Community Central – local and national grants.
93. Merseyside – funding information portal.
94. Open 4 Community - available in some local authority areas, including Notts, Leics and Hull.
95. Police & Crime Commissioners – many have funds for local organisations.
96. UK Community Foundations - network of 46 local grant making bodies.
Can You Help?
The free Charity Excellence Framework online toolkit has the largest charity sector resource base – it works on a community collaboration basis. Can you help me help others by adding anything to this resource? If so, e mail me at charityexcellence@gmail.com.
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