24 May 2024
Funding Opportunities
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Our Aims & Criteria
Our aims are to fund work within each of our funding programmes which:
will make a lasting difference to people’s lives rather than simply alleviating the symptoms or current problems;
is aimed at reducing isolation, stigma and discrimination, and;
encourages or enables groups that experience marginalisation and/or discrimination to share in the life of the whole community.
We fund organisations which are registered charities, and also other organisations which are not charities but which seek funding for a charitable project. (Such as constituted voluntary groups or Community Interest Companies for example.)
We do not make grants to individuals.
To make sure our grants have an impact, we only fund smaller organisations. If you work across a local area such as a village, estate or town, to be eligible you will need to have an income of less than around £100,000. At the other end of the spectrum, if you work across the whole of the UK you will need to have an income of less than around £250,000.
We make grants across the United Kingdom. The only exception is that we do not fund work within Greater London.
A SUMMARY OF OUR GRANT MAKING
We offer grants only to registered charities with a total annual expenditure of less than £40,000.
We will not fund work that does not focus specifically on one of our priority groups.
We only fund running costs.
Grants are normally for a maximum of £3,000 per year and we will fund for up to three years.
Most of our grants are for more than one year because we like to fund ongoing needs.
Applications that reflect our grant making policy have the best chance of success.
We will only fund work that focuses on one of our priority groups:
- Elderly people
- Children and young people
- People with physical impairments, learning difficulties or mental health challenges
- Social welfare – people trying to overcome life-limiting problems of a social, rather than medical, origin (such as addiction, relationship difficulties, abuse, offending)
- Education and learning (with a particular interest in people who are educationally disadvantaged, whether adults or children)
We only make grants for ongoing core funding
We prioritise:
- Work that is unattractive to the general public or unpopular with other funders
- Services that help to improve the lives of marginalised, disadvantaged or isolated people
- Applicants that can demonstrate an effective use of volunteers
- Applicants that can demonstrate (where feasible) an element of self
sustainability by charging subscriptions/fees to service users
DHSC Community Automated External Defibrillator (AED) Fund
Organisations across England are being invited to bid for a share of £1 million of government funding to buy life-saving defibrillators for community spaces like town halls, local parks or post offices. The DHSC Community Automated External Defibrillator (CAED) Fund will support provision of 2000 AEDs.
- You are a small UK registered charity with an annual income below £1m
- Your application is not for core salaries, building construction, general running costs, transport, financial deficits or overseas projects
- Your application is not on behalf of a community interest company, for religious institutions, museum or for an individual
- You have not received a grant from The Hedley Foundation, or submitted an unsuccessful application to the Foundation, within the last two years
Our grants
Our grants provide funding to projects that support those in need of a safe and secure home.
View our grant giving guide (PDF, 834KB) for more information, including eligibility and scoring criteria.
You can apply for a small grant or a large grant, depending on how much you want to apply for.
Small grants (up to £1,000)
For our small grants, we only accept requests to fund capital expenditure. This means that we fund the purchase of items used to directly help those in need, rather than contributing to a charity’s running costs.
We’ll only accept small grant applications from UK registered charities with a turnover of less than £1 million.
Large grants (£25,000-£100,000)
Applicants for large grants can apply for between £25,000 and £100,000. This can be a one year grant, or split across two or three years.
You can apply for core, project and/or capital costs. You can apply for new work or existing work, as long as you’re not requesting retrospective funding. We advise you to apply for what you need the most, in order to support those in need of a safe and secure home.
For our large grants, we’re only accepting grants from organisations based in Yorkshire and/or the North East of England.
We’ll only accept large grant applications from UK registered charities. For large grant applications, we only accept applications from UK registered charities with a turnover of £5 million or less.
Recipient Grant Terms
Any projects supported must be UK based (excluding Northern Ireland); address a community issue or support a local community initiative; and provide benefits to the local community.
Grant applications are open to non-profit organisations, charities, and community groups (including local branches of national charities) that work for the betterment of local communities through charitable initiatives. To be eligible, all organisations and community interest groups must be registered with a recognised governing body (such as the Charity Commission or Companies House) for a minimum of 18 months (they should have annual accounts available and submitted). If selected for a grant award, applicants will also need to provide their organisation’s articles of association or constitution, demonstrating clear objectives related to community interest and improvement.
The award of the grants and implementation of the grant making policy is carried out by the charity committee whose members make up the BCBN Board of Trustees and independent advisors. Each community project proposal may be rewarded up to £3,000 per project. BCBN annually, distributes grants totalling £36,000 to 12 UK charities and community projects.