Capacity building and development funds
Funding to support organisational development, capacity building work and/or collaboration.
The Fore
Funding considered for UK Registered Charities, Community Interest Companies (CICs) and Community Benefit Societies (CBSs) with an annual income of less than £500,000. The Fore runs three funding rounds each year – spring, summer and autumn. To apply for funding, organisations must register at the start of each funding round (numbers are capped so early registration is recommended).
The Fore offer unrestricted grants of up to £30,000 that can be spread over 1-3 years. The grants can be used for whatever you need for your organisation to grow, strengthen, become more efficient or resilient. Organisations that receive funding are also eligible for skills support in areas such as communications and fundraising.
The Fore is particularly keen to fund grassroot organisations working with underserved communities.
The Freshwater Foundation
They give financial grants to suitable groups in Ealing and Hounslow to fund their charitable projects and initiatives. Beyond this, they also give free training and support to charities in all aspects of their management, governance and fundraising.
Small Grant (up to £500)
They set aside a pot of money each year for small grants of up to £500 which groups can apply for at any time of the year (subject to there still being funds left in the pot). You can be an already constituted group, but they also consider applications from informal groups – in which case you will need to provide the signatures and contact details of three different, unrelated households in the area.
Grant Up to £2,000
Grants are offered through two funding rounds each year. Voluntary or community organisations engaging in charitable work can apply. This does not necessarily mean having charitable status, but the project you want funded must be considered charitable according to the charitable purposes set out in law.
The proposed spending should be for a project, development or infrastructure. In general, they do not fund day-to-day costs.
The group must be based in Ealing or Hounslow, the project must concern the needs of communities in Ealing and Hounslow and the group should ideally do the bulk of their work in those boroughs.
The King’s Fund GSK Impact Awards
The GSK IMPACT Awards are open to registered charities that are at least three years old, working in a health-related field in the UK and with an annual income between £150,000 and £3 million. Applications are encouraged from organisations led and supported by people from under-represented backgrounds, people from ethnic minority communities, Disabled people and people from the LGBTQ+ community.
The GSK IMPACT Awards (with application deadlines annually in September) recognise and reward charities that are doing excellent work to improve people’s health and wellbeing. Up to 10 winners win £40,000, with one overall winner receiving £50,000, and five runners up receiving £4000. The awards are designed to recognise success and achievements for existing work, so you do not have to present a new project. Award winners are also offered training and development, join the Network of GSK IMPACT Award winners and have a film made about their work.
The 2026 GSK IMPACT Awards will open for applications in July 2025.
Lloyds Bank Foundation Racial Equity Programme
This programme is for small local charities and CICs which are led by and working with people who are experiencing economic inequity because of their race or ethnicity. Under this programme we will support charities to strengthen their capacity and capabilities and become more resilient through a range of tailored development support offers alongside a three-year unrestricted grant of £75,000. The closing date for applications is 29 May 2025. We are only accepting applications from organisations working outside of London.
National Lottery Community Fund: Partnerships Funding
This funding is for organisations working together in partnership to help their community. By community we mean people living in the same area, or people with similar interests or life experiences. We offer funding for voluntary or community organisations, from £20,000 or more, for up to five years.
Please note we are currently making changes to this funding to fit our new strategy. Where possible, we strongly recommend that you do not apply until we launch our new criteria in Spring 2025.
Sir Halley Stewart Fund: Social grants
The Trust welcomes proposals for catalysing Social initiatives in the UK that are either practical on-the-ground projects (development projects) or focussed on the practical impact of research findings (research projects), which attempt to:
Prevent and resolve conflict, promote reconciliation, encourage re-connection between family members.
Help people to ‘move beyond disadvantage’.
Help people who may be vulnerable and/or have been exploited.
The main grants programme offers large multi-year grants, where the Trust will be a sole or major funder. Funding is for between £5,001 and £60,000 in total, although in rare and exceptional cases grants of up to £80,000 may be considered.
The small grants programme offers one-off grants for small projects, where the Trust will be a sole or major funder. Funding is for up to £5,000, which should cover the entire project or be the major funding contribution. The total project should cost no more than £5,000. This fund is usually aimed at small scoping or pilot projects.
Three Guineas Trust – Access to justice for Disabled people
Programme opens: 22 April 2025. Closing date for applications: 12 June 2025 by 6pm. Grant decisions released: Week of 6 October 2025.
This programme is for grants to projects supporting Disabled or neurodivergent people to exercise their rights on:
- Income, welfare benefits or debt
- Housing and homelessness
- Community care
- Personal liberty
- Equal access to goods and services
For this round, we will look at applications from not-for-profit organisations for work to provide legal advice, advocacy, or overcome barriers to access advice and advocacy services for Disabled or neurodivergent people.
We have earmarked a total of £1.5 million for this round of grants. The maximum annual grant will be £50,000 a year. Grants will be for up to 3 years’ funding.
There are no restrictions on what resources the grant can be used to pay for provided the work furthers Disabled or neurodivergent people’s access to justice.
Trust for London
Trust for London is an independent charitable foundation tackling poverty and inequality in the capital.
They fund work with two key aims: economic and social justice. Economic justice includes funding for decent work, improving social security, ending the poverty premium and tackling the housing crisis. Social justice includes funding to end migrant destitution, racial justice and disability justice.
They provide project and unrestricted funding.
There is no minimum or maximum size of grant but the average will be to give £40-£80k to organisations each year. You can apply for money for up to 5 years. They are unlikely to award grants over £300k in total.
They accept applications on a rolling basis for most of their priority areas so you can apply at any time. Their racial and disability justice funds operate a little differently.
Trust for London Disability Justice Fund
We’ll be accepting applications for the disability justice fund again in 2026.
Over the next year we’ll be giving out a small number of direct grants to deaf and disabled-led organisations (DDPOs) we already fund to help them continue or complete work in progress.
WCIT
Applications for funding may be submitted at any time and are considered by the Charitable Operations Committee at one of its four meetings a year. We are a small funder and therefore usually only fund projects up to £15,000.
As an IT charity, all projects we fund must make use of information technology, and must relate to one or more of our priority areas – education, inclusion, IT for charities, and public understanding of IT. Projects need to demonstrate an innovative use of IT, be scalable for wider replication, and be sustainable over time. As all of our grants are restricted, we expect recipients to produce formal reports on their outcomes.
We are more likely to fund the development and delivery of innovative new services, solutions, training, apps, analytics, AI, robotics, or accessibility features/hardware; projects where we are a material or sole funder; projects where we are sole funder of the IT component of a larger project; and organisations that could benefit from our pro bono support.
Woodward Charitable Trust
The trust awards grants to UK registered charities, Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIOs) and Community Interest Companies (CICs) with an annual income of less than £200k.
The Trust will only fund core costs and will only fund organisations that support one of the following target groups:
- Children and young people (up to 25 years)
- Disadvantaged families
- Prisoners and Ex-Offenders
Trustees like projects that promote community cohesion and the development of skills that will change the outlook and outcome for the users. Small grants are offered up to £3,000, but usually £1,000 or less. A few large grants are offered over £3,000 each year.
More resources available in our Members area
• Member Resource: Getting to Grips with Business Modelling
• DDPO HR Policy Templates
• Toolkit: Making Events Accessible to Disabled People
Not a member? Find out how your organisation can become a member at https://www.inclusionlondon.org.uk/membership/