UK Small Grants

Thank you for your interest in our UK Small Grants programme.

This programme is designed to support excellent local organisations and projects that work with:

  • disabled children and young people;
  • children and young people with life-limiting conditions;
  • and their families.

It provides grants of up to £10,000, although many grants are smaller than this.

 Two girls, one who is in a wheelchair holding onto a parachute

The programme is open to applications at any time. We aim to respond to your application with a final decision within eight weeks but this can sometimes take longer.  

We aim to support as many organisations as possible, and therefore are unlikely to fund any organisation in consecutive years. If you have received a grant, please wait at least a year after the completion of your project before reapplying.

If you are unsuccessful, we also ask that you wait at least one year from the date of your application before reapplying.

Young boy enjoying a giant tarpaulin slide

Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in our UK Small Grants programme.

This programme is designed to support excellent local organisations and projects that work with:

  • disabled children and young people;
  • children and young people with life-limiting conditions;
  • and their families.

It provides grants of up to £10,000, although many grants are smaller than this.

Young boy laughing during a school sensory storytelling session

The programme is open to applications at any time. We aim to respond to your application with a final decision within six weeks.

We aim to support as many organisations as possible, and therefore are unlikely to fund any organisation in consecutive years. If you are successful in receiving a grant, please wait at least a year after the completion of your project before reapplying.

If you are unsuccessful, we also ask that you wait at least one year from the date of your application before reapplying.

Young boy laughing during a school sensory storytelling session

Applying to the UK Small Grants

Every grant we make is intended to support disabled children and children with life-limiting conditions and their families.

We will consider applications from organisations working with children and young people aged from 0 – 25 years.

Projects:
Activities for disabled children, children with life-limiting conditions and their families.
Activities which support siblings of disabled children or siblings of children with life-limiting conditions.
Bereavement support for children and young people and for families bereaved of a child.
Family support / parent-led peer support for parents of disabled children.
Respite which supports the whole family.

Equipment and Materials:
Renovation, upgrading and additional equipment for hydrotherapy pools and multi-sensory rooms.
Minibuses.
Specialised play equipment / access to play and leisure for disabled children, children with life-limiting conditions and their families.

What sort of organisation do we fund?

We fund UK registered charitable organisations and CICs which are delivering projects in the UK.
We fund organisations whose annual income is less than £350,000.
We are committed to working towards a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion. We will fund organisations which share our goal and which are open to children and families of all faiths, backgrounds and cultures.
We are particularly keen to receive applications from organisations which operate in areas of high deprivation.

We regret that we cannot consider applications from the following:
Organisations which have received a small grant from us within the last 12 months
Local authorities
Residential schemes
Schools
Condition-specific organisations
Organisations seeking funding for wish-granting activities
Organisations which are registered outside the UK
Projects taking place outside the UK

You may apply for the UK Small Grants using either our online form or a Microsoft Word version of the form. Please note that if you are completing the online form there is no save function, so it is important to complete all the information before navigating away from the page. You may choose to download the Word document to prepare your responses and then to paste these into the form. Alternatively, you are welcome to email the word document to us at info@truecolourstrust.org.uk

Tips on how to complete the form.

Apply using the online form.

Download the Microsoft Word form.

You will receive an acknowledgement email to confirm safe receipt of your application within a week of submission. We aim to respond to your application with a final decision within eight weeks but this can sometimes take longer.  

Due to the number of applications received, we are unable to provide feedback on individual applications, but we will contact you to advise you whether or not you have been successful.

Please be assured that we will contact you if there is any additional information we need to support your application, or if we have any questions. If possible, please avoid submitting applications by post.

If you are awarded a grant, we will write to you with details of the grant conditions.

If you would like to proceed with the grant, we ask that you contact us to accept the conditions and let us know when you would like to receive payment. It is very helpful if you could contact us within six weeks of receiving our award letter and we ask that you draw down payment of the grant within 12 months of the award being made.

It is a condition of all our grants that you provide a report on the use of the grant within 12 months of the payment being made.

Organisations in receipt of a grant must adhere to the Trust’s safeguarding policy which can be found here.