Funding Focus: Westminster Foundation

Celebrating its 50th anniversary of grantmaking in 2024, the foundation provides long-term sustainable help to vulnerable young people by working with organisations supporting families, schools and local communities.

Grant-making is focused on providing early help to children and young people aged 0-25, giving them opportunities to thrive, build confidence and raise aspirations.

What grants are available?

The foundation’s last set of accounts shows that it spent £7.4mn on charitable activities in 2022 and had an income of £3.2mn.

It offers small grants for up to £10,000 on a rolling basis throughout the year. These are usually one-off grants that aim to strengthen and enhance activities for children and young people to boost their wellbeing.

Small grants are geographically limited to Chester, Westminster and rural Cheshire West, northern Lancashire (Morecombe and Lancaster region) and Sutherland, areas where the Grosvenor family have long associations.

Applications must go through the online application form, which are reviewed four times a year by a small grants panel.

What are the aims of the fund?

The foundation works with local organisations that generate localised impact and creates opportunities for children and young people up to 25 years old. Grants are prioritised towards those facing deprivation or intergenerational inequality who might otherwise not have access to opportunities. It will fund:

• Creating opportunities: helping inspire children and young people so they and their families have the resilience, skills and capacity to live happy, healthy lives.

• Supporting communities: the foundation believes schools, colleges, charities and youth groups are best placed to understand local needs and have the capacity to support young people over time.

• Influencing change: using resources and influence to foster shared learning on early intervention and drawing on high-quality data generated through the grantmaking programme to make a clear case for change.

What will/won’t it fund?

Recipients can put funding towards core and project-specific costs. However, the foundation will not fund:

• Capital costs in isolation

• Requests for individuals or projects benefitting only one school, including burseries

• Holidays or trips including respite programmes

• Projects with political or religious links

• Gifts and prizes for events and auctions

• Specific medical conditions and medical research.

How to apply

The online application form gives applicants the chance to explain about their project and organisation, the issues trying to be addressed and the support young people need.

Once submitted, the foundation’s grants team will review and assess applications usually within four weeks of the quarterly panel meeting deadlines throughout the year. The panel will decide whether to fund, defer or decline an application within six weeks of the application deadline date.

What are the 2024 deadlines?

• 3 May

• 9 August

• 1 November

Who has benefitted?

Cheshire Young Carers used its grant to support its Team YAC group of young people aged 14-18. The initiative engages with an “in-to-work” programme where young people discover more about job roles in different settings. It aims to inspire young adult carers, showing them that self-belief can open up opportunities. Previously the group visited M&S Bank and The Countess of Chester Hospital to learn about what happens at these organisations.

Participating in the programme has helped Louise to nurture her aspirations resulting in an improvement in academic grades and emotional wellbeing. She has also forged strong support networks and made friends through the YAC. Louise met with Tokyo government officials to understand how to support young carers, reflecting her confidence and celebrating the positive aspects of being a young carer.

More from: https://westminsterfoundation.org.uk/grantmaking

Funding roundup

The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has opened a £3.5mn grant round to test the impact of talking therapies on preventing children from becoming involved in violence. The charity is looking to fund and evaluate projects that use psychological therapies to support children and young people who are at risk of violence or are already involved in the youth justice system. The YEF is looking to strengthen the evidence by commissioning robust impact trials on different types of therapies including cognitive behavioural therapy.

Stockport-based disability charity, Supportability, has been awarded £93,000 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to digitise 70 Years of its history. There will be a digitised timeline of photographs, documents and audio recordings for anyone to access, capturing and sharing the voices and experiences of disabled people and their families over the past 70 years. The 18-month project will begin in the summer of 2024 and will cumulate in a public exhibition.

TalkTalk and PlatformX Communications raised £366,000 at its 15th annual fundraising event Night of Ambition for Ambitious about Autism’s assistive technology programme. This year’s event, in partnership with headline sponsor CGI, one of the largest independent IT and business consulting companies in the world, was held at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House London on 27 March and was attended by more than 350 guests. Ambitious about Autism delivers its assistive technology programme, supporting learners aged 16-25 at Ambitious College, at specialist college campuses in London.