Guidance for applicants

As a small newly established family-based charity we are aiming to enhance the lives of disadvantaged people. We welcome applications from small community-based charities and organisations working for the public benefit, principally but not exclusively in Buckinghamshire and throughout England.

We support applications from organisations providing services that support our purposes.

Our purposes

The promotion of any charitable purposes for the benefit of the community of the area of benefit and in particular the advancement of education and the protection of good health both mental and physical and the relief of poverty distress and disability or sickness and other exclusively charitable purposes which are in the opinion of the trustees beneficial to the said community or any part or parts thereof by making grants to not-for-profit community groups and charities whose objects reflect ours.

However we can only give small grants at present, typically about £200 – £500. If you are a large organisation or are seeking larger amounts, please do not apply. Please be aware that our trustees are busy people and do not have time to go through reams of extra material or photographs.

The groups that our purposes are intended to benefit / beneficiaries:

  1. young people
  2. people with disabilities of all types [blind, physical, mental learning disabilities]
  3. the elderly and vulnerable
  4. people who are ill or suffering from diseases of all types
  5. the dying. 

We wish the grants to go for the public benefit of anyone who can be helped, but not normally directly to an individual unless there were special circumstances. An example of the circumstance that would warrant our consideration to support is where a disabled individual is reliant on a voice generator to communicate and the carer phones to say it has broken. We would then expect the application to be made on their behalf by an organisation that knows them. Anyone who is disadvantaged by reason of youth, age, disability, illness, disease, ill-health or any other disadvantage.

The type of costs we would support would include, but not be limited to: transport costs, equipment to support daily living, costs of certain projects, replacing equipment used by organisations working for the public benefit such as computers.

We would not fund the following:

  1. anything political
  2.  animal welfare [but training assistance dogs for people with disabilities we would support]
  3. anything that is not compatible with our objectives
  4. any application that is from an individual, unless there are special circumstances, such as the need to immediately replace a vital piece of equipment for a disabled person such as a speech generator, and that the application is made through an organisation who knows them.
  5. any organisation not based in England
  6. We would not welcome repeat applications within 2 years of an initial application unless invited to try again the following year due to limited funding available in the current year
  7. We will not fund charities that have unrestricted reserves in excess of 12 months running costs or large regional and/or national charities.
  8. We may not support organisations that have been running for less than 12 months as they will have no track record.
  9. We are not likely to consider an application from a larger concern at present preferring to make a bigger impact with our grants to smaller charities.
  10. General appeals from National Charities
  11. Small contributions to large appeals for vehicles or buildings.

Please do not waste your time if you do not meet these eligibility requirements or if you have made an application in the last two years.

Please apply by email using a copy of the application form, also enclosing as attachments your governing document and a recent bank statement to the following email address: maggiewoosterk6@gmail.com

If your organisation is not personally known to the trustees, we may request that you send a list of your organisation’s policies, evidence of DBS checks if working with vulnerable people or a set of accounts or we may make a visit to aid our decision-making.

The trustees meet in February, May, August and November to consider any applications that have arrived since the last meeting and decisions will normally be advised by email not later than the end of the following month.

Should you be successful, we would expect an acknowledgement of the receipt of the grant [which should be spent within 6 – 12 months] and a further short email/letter within 12 months to let us know that the grant has been spent and what it was spent on and what benefits were achieved.

Please note that no acknowledgment will be given to applications that are considered to be ineligible by the trustees.