Applying for a grant for
your organisation
The purpose of these guidelines is to assist organisations considering making an application to our Improving Lives Fund (funding for organisations). We appreciate the time and effort that goes into fundraising, so we hope that this guidance on our funding criteria and application process provides clear and explicit information, enabling you to be as informed as possible in making an application.
If, after reading the guidelines, you are still unsure about your organisation’s eligibility or the application process, you are encouraged to contact the National Benevolent Charity to discuss your proposed application.
We are currently open to applications from organisations working in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire & Swindon. Please note we only have one funding round for Bristol per year.
The closing dates for applications for funding are :
· 11thApril 2025 (Bristol, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire & Swindon)
· 15thAugust (Gloucestershire, Wiltshire & Swindon)
Our Organisation Grants Manager, Vicky Oram-Ahern, can be contacted on vicky.oram@natben.org.uk or 01666 848 667 and is available to support applicants throughout the process.
What is the aim of our grant making?
We aim to make grants to a wide range of organisations working to alleviate poverty and improve lives in Bristol, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire & Swindon.
What are our funding criteria?
1. Poverty
Organisations need to demonstrate that their primary service users are experiencing poverty and that their funded activity aims to alleviate that poverty. For the purposes of our grant-making we align ourselves with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation definition of poverty ‘when your resources are well below your minimum needs. Poverty means struggling to pay for essentials and to participate in society'. Please see full guidelines for our definition of poverty and information on how we may evidence poverty.
2. Geographical areas of interest
We focus on geographical areas where we can build our knowledge and understanding of communities, to ensure our grant-making is informed by local needs and priorities. We therefore only support organisations delivering work in (at least) one of our geographical areas of interest: Bristol, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire & Swindon.
3. Priority areas
Through our funding we aim to tackle poverty and to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged. We do this by providing home essentials, financial, emotional, and practical support, advice, and training. We aim to help people live in reasonable comfort, to improve their physical and psychological wellbeing and to increase their capacity to engage positively in society. We will fund work that supports outcomes in one or more of the following areas:
i) Supporting people in destitution/ crisis
ii) Opportunities for employment/ education/ training
iii) Strengthening families and/ or communities
iv) Financial resilience
Please see full guidelines for more information on what we mean by these priority areas.
Who can apply?
We only make grants to support activity which is charitable by law. Organisations do not have to be registered charities to apply, however they do need to be a not-for-profit and have an agreed constitution.
We are principally looking to support frontline organisations working with marginalised people and grassroots community organisations. Preference will be given to local organisations.
Where organisations have had two consecutive years of funding, we ask that they wait 12 months from the end of their grant period before reapplying.
Please see our latest Impact Report for some examples of recent grants to organisations.
How do we fund?
The organisations we support are the experts on the ground and we trust that they will utilise funding in the most valuable way to their service users. Therefore our preference is to provide unrestricted funding over a period of one or two years.
What don't we fund?
Grant requests which we do not normally support are:
- Projects that exclusively serve religious purposes.
- Political campaigns and legislative lobbying efforts.
- Organisations established solely for the relief or benefit of animals or plants.
- Retrospective or deficit funding.
- One-off conferences or events, except where these fall within a wider context that aligns with our charitable objects.
What is our application process for Bristol?
Please note our main grants programme for Bristol is now closed. We have one funding round per year where we award grants of £40,000 over two years to a small number of organisations. We will re-open to Bristol early in the new year, and the closing date for the next round of funding will be 11thApril 2025.
However, we remain open to smaller grants of up to £2,000 which are considered throughout the year and outside of our grants panel meetings, so these are not subject to our internal panel deadlines.
What is our application process for Gloucestershire?
Please submit your application online using the Expression of Interest form at the bottom of this page. Our maximum grant awarded in Gloucestershire is £10,000 per organisation, per year.
Our closing dates for applications for funding are:
· 11th April2025 (for grants panel meeting 23rd June 2025)
· 15th August2025 (for grants panel meeting 27th October 2025)
However, you are advised to apply as soon as possible.
Smaller grants of up to £2,000 are considered throughout the year and outside of our grants panel meetings, so these are not subject to our internal panel deadlines.
Alternatively, you can apply through Gloucestershire Funders Home - Gloucestershire Funders (glosfunders.org.uk). If you choose to apply via Gloucestershire Funders your application will be reviewed by all members, so you may receive funding from another funder. However your application will be subject to each member's processes.
What is our application process for
Wiltshire & Swindon?
Please submit your application online using the Expression of Interest form at the bottom of this page. Our maximum grant awarded in Wiltshire & Swindon is £10,000 per organisation, per year.
Our closing dates for applications for funding are:
· 11th April 2025 (for grants panel meeting 23rd June 2025)
· 15th August 2025 (for grants panel meeting 27th October 2025)
However, you are advised to apply as soon as possible.
Smaller grants of up to £2,000 are considered throughout the year and outside of our grants panel meetings, so these are not subject to our internal panel deadlines.
What happens next?
We aim to contact all applicants within two weeks. Organisations that have a good chance of success will be invited to attend a virtual meeting. We will share in advance the areas we wish to discuss, giving organisations time to prepare.
How do we make decisions?
Following the virtual meeting, your application will be presented to the grants panel. All applications are assessed against the following:
- The organisation – assessing the applicant’s skills and capacity to carry out the work effectively.
- The work – assessing the outcomes of the work proposed and how it aligns with our charitable objects.
Timescales
- For grants for up to £2,000, we aim to reach an outcome within two months.
- For our larger grants you will receive an outcome three months from the application deadline.
What happens once we have made a decision?
All unsuccessful applicants will receive feedback – via email (and phone call should they wish). There is no right of appeal.
If you are successful, we will notify you via email to ensure that we have all the relevant details for electronic banking, and for grants over £2,000 we will also send a grant agreement setting out our standard terms and conditions to accepting the grant.
What reporting do we expect?
We aim for our monitoring and reporting to be proportionate and light touch. We typically ask organisations to let us know when they have produced an annual report and/or impact report and we will use this in place of a more formal written report. Occasionally we may ask to visit an organisation or for information for our own impact reporting.
Please see full guidelines for more details on our application process.
