Postcode Lottery Funding: The Postcode Trusts Explained

Postcode Lottery says that funds raised by its players support thousands of charities and good causes every year. For a small charity, its main grant is unusually useful: flexible money over three years that can support the work of your whole organisation, not one project. The process is strict, though, with short application windows and detailed checks on your accounts and governance. This guide explains how the funding is organised, who can apply, what the trusts look for and how to prepare. Everything here comes from Postcode Lottery's website and the trusts' own 2026 funding guides, checked on the date shown on this page.

How Postcode Lottery funding is organised

Postcode Lottery's grant programme for local charities is delivered through six trusts, each covering part of Great Britain:

• People's Postcode Trust supports good causes in Scotland
• Postcode Community Trust supports good causes in Wales
• Postcode Neighbourhood Trust supports good causes in the north of England
• Postcode Local Trust supports good causes in the west of England
• Postcode Places Trust supports good causes in the east of England
• Postcode Society Trust supports good causes in the south of England

You apply to the trust that covers the area where your activities take place. The trusts' websites include a finder where you enter that postcode. If you work across Great Britain, you can apply to any trust area you are based in, but you can only send one application to one trust in any funding round.

Postcode Lottery also runs other funding, including the Dream Fund, which offers a single award of £5 million for a collaborative project. That is a very different competition and is not covered here.

What the main grant offers

The trusts' 2026 funding guides describe the same main programme:

• Three-year, flexible funding. The trusts want to hear about the work your whole organisation does, not a specific project or list of costs. People's Postcode Trust describes it as unrestricted.
• Up to £50,000 in total over three years, depending on your income. Your request must be no more than 75% of the annual income in your most recent signed accounts. The eligibility checker tells you your maximum.
• No more than 50% in any one year. If you are successful, you choose how to split the award, so it is paid in two or three instalments. The minimum payment is £1,000.

Before each later payment, you complete a short review form and a new funding agreement. People's Postcode Trust says it can withhold later payments if an organisation no longer meets its due diligence requirements.

Who can apply

The main programme accepts three types of organisation:

• Registered charities, registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales or with OSCR in Scotland. This includes CIOs and SCIOs, which are registered charities.
• Community Interest Companies with an asset lock. The guides say Schedule 1 and 2 CICs are eligible and Schedule 3 CICs are not. If the objects in your governing document are blank or unclear, the trust will ask for your CIC36 community interest statement. Our guide to CICs limited by shares or guarantee explains the different CIC models.
• Community Benefit Societies registered with the Financial Conduct Authority, set up for the benefit of the community rather than members.

You must also:

• have an income between £10,000 and £1 million in your most recent financial year
• have been operating for at least 12 months, with signed accounts
• have at least three trustees or directors, with no more than half of them related to each other
• have a UK bank account in the organisation's name with two unrelated signatories (the trusts do not pay into money transfer services)
• have aims that fit one of the four funding themes

The guides list organisations they do not fund under this programme. These include companies limited by guarantee that are not charities or CICs, constituted voluntary groups, excepted and exempt charities, schools, nurseries and parent teacher associations, public bodies such as parish and town councils, NHS charities, organisations with solely religious objects and groups outside Great Britain. Organisations funded by another Postcode Trust in the last 12 months, and local branches of national charities that are Postcode Lottery long-term partners, such as Scouts and Girlguiding groups, are also excluded.

If you are not eligible for the main programme, the trusts point you to their partnership programmes. Postcode Lottery says partnership grants are available for small groups with an income under £10,000, sports organisations, environmental projects and schools.

The four funding themes

Your organisation's main aims must fit one of these themes, and you choose one on the form:

1. Enabling participation in the arts, for organisations whose core work helps people overcome specific barriers to taking part in the arts.
2. Preventing or reducing the impact of poverty, for organisations giving specialist, ongoing support to people at risk of or living in poverty.
3. Supporting marginalised groups and/or tackling inequality, for organisations whose main purpose is helping specific marginalised communities take part fully in social, economic, political or cultural life.
4. Improving mental health, for organisations supporting people with mental ill health, rather than general wellbeing activities.

Physical activity and the environment are handled through the partnership programmes instead.

Priorities when rounds are oversubscribed

The trusts say rounds are consistently oversubscribed. Priorities are not eligibility rules, but they can decide between strong applications. People's Postcode Trust lists organisations with an income of £250,000 or less, work in Scotland's most deprived areas, organisations focused on marginalised groups, and postcode areas that have not had funding in the last 12 months. It says 87% of the organisations it funded in 2025 had an income under £250,000, and 13% of applications it received in 2025 were successful. Check the priorities in your own trust's guide, as the area-based priority is specific to each nation or region.

Funding rounds and timeline

The trusts open for short, fixed windows rather than all year. People's Postcode Trust ran three rounds in 2026, each open for 8 days, in March, June and September. All three have now closed, and it says its 2027 rounds will be published in the new year. It also notes that its eligibility checker reflects 2026 criteria and has not yet been updated for 2027, so check the details again when the new guide appears.

People's Postcode Trust gives this timeline after a round closes:

• decisions shared by email four to five weeks after the deadline
• funding agreements returned and checked in the following weeks
• first payment about 8 weeks after the deadline, with later payments about 12 months apart

Its FAQs say you cannot save the live online form, so it publishes the application questions in advance. Draft your answers before the round opens, ideally with our guides on writing a statement of need and on how funders assess grant applications.

Due diligence: the checks that trip people up

The trusts carry out detailed checks, and their FAQs explain the most common reasons applications fail:

• Late accounts. If your latest accounts are more than 60 days overdue with your regulator, the application is ineligible, and a history of substantially late filing can also rule you out.
• Income that does not match. The income on your form must match your signed accounts, and the trusts will not count deferred income.
• Unexplained deficits. If your accounts show a deficit, explain it in the application or the accounts.
• Old accounts. If your year end is more than 13 months before you apply, you need management or draft accounts for the period since. Organisations with an income under £50,000 can send a written financial overview instead.
• Trustee records. Trustee and director details must be up to date with the Charity Commission or Companies House.
• References. You need two contactable referees from outside your organisation, such as a partner, a past funder, a local authority contact or a support organisation, and you need their consent first.
• Online presence. The trusts look at your public information to check it matches your application.

None of this is difficult, but each item can make an otherwise good application ineligible, so check them all before the round opens.

After a decision

If you are funded, you can apply again 12 months after the date your final payment would have been made, and only once you have returned your end-of-grant review form. If you are unsuccessful, you can apply a maximum of twice in one calendar year.

GrantMatch lists open grants for small charities across the UK while you wait for the next round. See charity grants in Scotland, charity grants in Wales and small grants for community groups, or browse all grants for charities. Create a free profile and we will match you with funders that fit your work.