Two men and a woman from Alive posing with a plant

Small grants

The Fund awards small grants of up to £5,000 per year to approximately 100 community based organisations each year.

The small grants programme is closed to applications at present and will reopen in early 2025.

Eligibility criteria

To apply for a small grant, your organisation must:

Be a UK registered non-profit organisation.
Have an annual income of less than £1 million.
Have completed two years of activity.
Have less than 6 months unrestricted free reserves.
If seeking funding for a project, the total cost of the project should not exceed £200,000.
Have waited at least one year from the date of any previous unsuccessful application or one year from the date of the end of the award period for previously successful applicants.

Small grants will not be awarded to:

Individuals and public bodies.
Local branches of non-profit organisations that are part of a federation with a single or central governing body.
Organisations that mainly distribute grants to other organisations.
Organisations with political associations or interests.
Cover capital expenditure with the exception of community-based heritage conservation and restoration projects aimed at preserving the fabric of historic buildings.
Organisations that are tackling food waste, food insecurity or food poverty in the UK. These organisations may apply to our Coronation Food Project grant programme.
Organisations with consistent late regulatory reporting history. Any exceptional reasons for this should be included in the application form.

The application process

We aim to be a responsible and flexible grant-maker and consider each funding application on its own merits.

Organisations can apply for a grant on this website when the Fund is inviting applications. Please note we do not accept applications outside of the stated application windows and any unsolicited applications will not be considered. For more information, please see the guidance notes below.

You can apply for a grant on this website, when the grants round is open as advertised at the top of this page and on our social media channels.
You may start your application, save it and return to it at another time within the grant round.
A confirmation email and copy of your application will be emailed to you after submission.
We strongly recommend you read the guidance notes before you begin your application.

Initial assessment and shortlisting of the funding request will be carried out by an officer of the Fund.
Awards will be considered by the Small Grant Committee.
Committee recommendations are then considered and ratified by the Board of Trustees.

Successful applicants will be contacted via email after our Trustees approve the Committee’s recommendations.
We will send you an award agreement and online bank details form for your completion, after which payment will be made.
At the end of the grant period, we will ask you to submit a progress report. Any further funding is contingent on this.

We inform all applicants via email of the outcome of their application within one month of the ratification of awards, though please note that these sometimes go to your spam folder.
If you do not receive an email from us within six months of submitting your application then it is likely that the application was unsuccessful.
We are unable to provide specific feedback due to the volume of applications received.

Only one application will be considered from each organisation in any one year.
A further application will be considered one year from the date of any previous unsuccessful application or one year from the date of the end of the award period for previously successful applicants.