How to Approach Charitable Trusts and Foundations

Charitable trusts and foundations give a large share of the grants that UK charities and community groups rely on. They range from household names that give tens of millions a year to small family trusts with one or two trustees. Approaching them well is less about clever writing and more about choosing the right trusts and following their process to the letter. This guide shows you how.

Understand what a trust is looking for

A trust is a charity whose main activity is giving money to other organisations or people. Its trustees decide what it funds, usually guided by the wishes of the person or family who set it up. That means:

• Priorities are fixed by the trust, not by you. If a trust funds young people in the North East, a great project for older people in Kent will not get funded.
• Many trusts are small. Some have no staff and meet a few times a year. A clear, short approach respects their time.
• Eligibility rules are firm. Some fund only registered charities. Others fund CICs, constituted groups or schools. Check before anything else.

Garfield Weston Foundation is a good example of how specific the rules can be. It funds registered charities, CIOs and exempt or excepted charities with at least a year of accounts, but not CICs, community benefit societies or social enterprises. Our Garfield Weston guide covers its rules in full.

Build a shortlist

Start with what you need funded

Write down the project or costs you need to fund, how much, where and when. Be clear whether you need core costs, capital or a project. Many trusts fund only one or two of these.

Find trusts that match

Good places to look include:

• GrantMatch. We list open grants from trusts and foundations with their eligibility, amounts and deadlines. Browse grants for charities, or look at funders such as Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Wolfson Foundation and City Bridge Foundation.
• Trust websites. Read their guidelines, exclusions and lists of recent grants.
• The charity registers. The Charity Commission register for England and Wales shows what each charity does, its trustees and its income and spending. Scotland has the OSCR register and Northern Ireland the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland register.
• 360Giving GrantNav. GrantNav is a free search of grants data published by funders. At the time of checking it held data on more than 1.5 million grants from 356 funders. You can search by recipient to see which trusts fund organisations like yours.
• Peers. Look at the annual reports and websites of similar organisations. They often thank their funders.
• Your community foundation. Local trusts sometimes run their grants through it. See our community foundation grants guide.

Score each trust for fit

For each trust, check:

1. Are we eligible as an organisation?
2. Do they fund our area of work and our geography?
3. Do they fund the type of cost we need?
4. Is our request in their usual range?
5. Can we meet their timetable?

If a trust fails any of these, take it off the list. A shortlist of ten well-matched trusts is worth more than fifty poor fits.

Give yourself enough time

Trust funding is rarely quick. Some trusts decide within weeks, but many meet only a few times a year, and the larger ones can take several months. Garfield Weston, for example, says it aims to decide Regular Grants within 4 to 6 months. Start your trust approaches at least six months before you need the money, and longer for capital projects.

Make first contact the right way

Some trusts welcome a call or email before you apply. Others say clearly that they do not take enquiries. Do what they ask.

When contact is welcome, keep it short. Introduce your organisation in two sentences, describe the work you want funded and the amount, and ask a specific question, such as whether the project fits their current priorities. Do not send a full proposal unless they ask for one.

Some funders have joined IVAR's Open and Trusting grant-making community, whose eight commitments include explaining priorities clearly, asking only relevant questions and giving feedback. If a funder you are approaching has joined, expect its guidance to be clear about what it wants, and use it.

Write the application

Trust applications come in different forms:

• Online forms with set questions and word limits.
• Written proposals, where you write your own document up to a page limit. Garfield Weston, for example, asks for no more than 10 A4 pages with no appendices.
• Short first-stage enquiries, followed by a full application if invited.

Whatever the format, trusts usually want to know the same things:

• The need. Who you help, why, and how you know. See our statement of need guide.
• What you will do. The activities, who delivers them and when.
• The difference it makes. Outcomes, how you measure them and why your approach works. Our theory of change guide helps here.
• The money. A clear budget, what you are asking this trust for, and who else is funding the work. Our grant budget template guide and match funding guide cover this.
• Your organisation. Track record, governance and finances, including recent accounts.

Tailor every application. Trustees read many bids and can spot a generic one. Use the trust's own words for its priorities and show exactly how your work meets them. For a broader walkthrough of the writing itself, see our guide on how to write a grant application.

Get the practical details right

Small mistakes cost trust bids more than weak writing does. Before you send anything:

• Check the deadline and the meeting dates. Many trusts decide at trustee meetings a few times a year.
• Include every document asked for, such as accounts, a governing document or policies, and nothing that was not asked for.
• Name the right contact and spell the trust's name correctly.
• Check the numbers add up between your narrative, budget and accounts.
• Note any reapply rule. Garfield Weston, for example, asks you to wait at least 12 months after an outcome before applying again.

After you apply

If you are funded

Thank the trust promptly, read the terms and conditions carefully and diary every reporting date. Send reports on time and be honest about what went well and what did not. Our grant monitoring and reporting guide explains what to collect. A trust that has funded you once and received good reports is far more likely to fund you again.

If you are turned down

Ask for feedback if the trust offers it, note the reapply date and move on to the next trust on your list. A no is often about the trust's budget that year rather than the quality of your work. Our guide to how funders assess grant applications explains the common reasons bids fall short.

Keep a trust pipeline

Trust fundraising works best as a steady habit. Keep a simple tracker with each trust's priorities, deadlines, what you asked for, the outcome, any feedback and when you can apply again. Review it every month. Over time it becomes your most valuable fundraising tool.

Find trusts that fit your work

GrantMatch lists open grants from trusts and foundations across the UK. Create a free profile and we will match you with the ones that fit your organisation, and alert you when new rounds open.