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Funding News
Their grant programmes cover a range of initiatives across their portfolio areas of Charity, Education and Leather. The ACEs Main Grants Programme 2025 opens 10am on 26 March 2025 and marks the fourth year of The Leathersellers’ strategic giving to help prevent and tackle the consequences of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The ACEs Main Grants Programme provides unrestricted core funding through multi-year grants of up to four years at £20,000-£25,000 per annum, to charities and CIOs throughout the UK. The Small Grants Programme is a rolling funding programme for one-off grants of up to £5,000. There are 8 application windows throughout the year and each window will close when 40 applications have been received. The next window opens at 10am on 31 March 2025.
Community Foundation for Northern Ireland
The Keadue Community Grants Fund provides support to local organisations tackling the growing social need in Derry/Londonderry and surrounding Waterside areas. Organisations and constituted groups which are supporting local people through short and long term crises caused by a range of social factors including issues such as poverty, addiction, and low educational attainment, can apply for a grant which may also cover running costs. Grant sizes will typically between £10k and £20k for up to two years. Deadline 11 April 2025 at 1pm. The Evishgaran and Craiggore Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund provides financial support towards the development of locally beneficial community-based projects and initiatives within a 7km radius of Evishgaran and Craiggore wind farms, Dungiven. Grants up to £4,000. If additional funding is available from this fund, the panel may decide to award grants up to £10,000. They anticipate supporting up to 2 grants at this level. Deadline 28 April 2025 at 1pm.
Matthew Good Foundation: Grants for Good Fund
This programme, funded by the John Good Group, offers unrestricted funds that you can use for any of your organisation’s costs, including core running costs. Every three months, they will share £15,000 between five shortlisted projects. Eligible organisations must be a UK-based local community group, charity, voluntary group or social enterprise, have an annual income of less than £50,000, and have a bank account in the organisation’s name. Current round is now open until 15 June 2025.
Biffa Award: Partnership Grants Scheme
Biffa Award are currently accepting Expressions of Interest for between £250,000 and £1,000,000 to the 2025 Partnership Grants Scheme for the Built Environment and Natural Environment themes. Built Environment projects should restore, modernise and/or improve facilities such as cultural, heritage or visitor centres. Natural Environment projects should support a variety of living things including all species of plants and animals, along with the habitats and natural processes that support them. An organisation must be a fully constituted, charitable or not-for-profit organisation with no share capital. The project site must be within 15 miles of a significant Biffa Operation or active Biffa Landfill Site. The project site must ALSO be within 10 miles of a licenced landfill site (please click here to check eligibility and save the address as you will need this to submit your application). Expression of Interest deadline midday on 30 May 2025.
The Shoosmiths Foundation are inviting applications for projects in the UK that advance access to justice, for which the Foundation will distribute grants of between £25,000 and £50,000 to the successful applicants. The Foundation welcomes applications from charities that work in any of the following areas in regard to increasing access to justice: sustaining or improving community access to specialist legal advice and leveraging organisation’s and/or educational institutions pro bono programmes to increase access to justice. They encourage applications from all sizes of UK registered charity, especially smaller charities. Please note they are inviting applications by 18 April 2025 but reserve the right to close this round of funding sooner once they have received sufficient suitable applications. They encourage early applications.
Armagh, Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council Call 2
Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council will be offering financial assistance to eligible groups in the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector. Call 2 will open for applications @ 09:00 Monday 24 March and close at 12noon on Friday 25 April 2025. The delivery period for call 2 is from 16 June 2025 until 31 March 2026. Funding is available through the following grant programmes: Community Grants, Arts, Culture and Events Grants, and Good Relations Grants. Their VE Day Celebratory Grant is currently open and closes midday 31 March 2025. Please note the delivery dates for the VE Day Specialist grant have now changed. Celebratory events must take place between 1st May – 15th May 2025.
Upcoming Deadlines
Community Foundation for Northern Ireland: The Brian Conlon Foundation
The Brian Conlon Foundation was set up in Brian’s memory to continue his legacy by supporting causes that were close to his heart providing grants of up to £3,500 for eligible applicants in Newry City focusing on education, amateur sport, opportunities for young people from the local area, and assistance for communities in disadvantaged Deadline 1pm on 25 March 2025.
Every year, the Thank You Fund gives back to local Irish non-profit organisations, helping them fund projects that matter to their communities. Awards of between €8,000 - €15,000 / £7,000 - £13,000 (sterling figure based on conversion rates at the time) will be available. For 2025, they will focus on one overall theme: Supporting and empowering youth interventions across the island of Ireland under the pillars of Inclusion and Inspiration. Open to organisations working with young people aged between 16-25 years old, are a registered not-for-profit or charitable organisation, have a bank account set up in the name of the organisation, are registered in the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland and active for the past 12 months, and have a child protection / safeguarding policy in place. Deadline midnight on 26 March 2025.
Music for All provides grants for both individuals and groups based within the UK to enable more people to access musical instruments and lessons and music programmes for the community. In Funding round 1 areas supported are: community-based groups making music with children and young people aged between 4-11 (up to £2000), community-based groups making music working with diverse communities from the global majority (up to £2000), community-based groups making music with those with learning and cognitive challenges (up to £200), and community-based groups using electric guitars and amplifiers (supplied). Funding round 1 closes at 23:59 on 27 March 2025.
The Foundation intends to allocate in the region of £400,000 and will consider multi-year funding. 75% of the budget will be allocated to large grants and 25% to small grants (under £25,000). The Foundation will support applications that are aligned to its mission, “To progress and facilitate education and career opportunities” and the following two themes: Enabling STEM related education and career opportunities and Enabling students to make the correct choices between employment/career and higher-level education pathways. Only projects within Northern Ireland meeting one or both of these themes will be eligible. Expressions of Interest deadline 4pm on 28 March 2025.
Arts & Business NI: Investment Programme
Investment Programme helps organisations ignite long-term partnerships, reach new audiences, connect with communities, support business solutions, and deliver world-class arts and culture. This is a competitive match-fund, which supports partnerships between arts organisations and commercial businesses in Northern Ireland. All applications must be new or existing partnerships between an arts/cultural organisation and a business in Northern Ireland. This fund is open to both A&BNI members and non-members. They can award up to £15,000 match-funding to the lead arts partner in a financial year; a partnership can receive investment a maximum of 2 times. They open submissions for this fund 5 times a year. Next deadline 28 March 2025 with four more to follow.
Fundraising Hub
BBC Children in Need to pause grant applications
BBC Children in Need have announced they are to pause applications to their grants programmes for four months in April.
Jaguar Land Rover launches charitable foundation | NICVA
Jaguar Land Rover have created the JLR Foundation, a charitable foundation dedicated to empowering children and young people to reach their full potential and catalyse positive social and environmental change. The manufacturer is pledging up to £2.5 million to support its charitable work in the first year, with plans to increase funding annually as the Foundation grows.
Funding February Content Collection
Funding February - thanks to our many contributors for helping us to curate this collection of articles and resources.
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