Big Lottery Fund

The Big Lottery Fund was launched on 1 June 2004 and was created by merging the Community Fund and the New Opportunities Fund. It will hand out half the money for good causes from the National Lottery. Further information on available funding can be found onthe Big Lottery Fund website. 

Grant-making trusts and foundations

The Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF) notes that there are about 8,800 independent grant-making trusts and foundations in the UK. They give about £2 billion in grants each year to charities with about 70% of them giving in the health and social welfare fields, 30% to the arts and recreation and 9% to causes related to religion. According to the ACF, trusts and foundations ‘like to fund’:

• new methods of tackling problems;

• disadvantaged and minority groups which have trouble using ordinaryservices, or which are inadequately served by them;

• responses to new or newly discovered needs and problems;

• work which is hard to finance through conventional fund-raising;

• one-off purchases or projects; 

• short and medium-term work which is likely to bring a long-term benefitand/or to attract long-term funding from elsewhere.

An ACF factsheet, Applying to a charitable trust or foundation, gives further usefulinformation, including details of regional directories. 

Directory of Social Change

The Directory of Social Change aims ‘to to be an internationally recognised, independentsource of information and support to voluntary and community sectors worldwide’.

Its website contains general advice on charities as well as a set of funding guides. 

FunderFinder

FunderFinder develops and distributes software to help individuals and not-for-profitorganisations in the UK to identify charitable trusts that might give them money. It alsoprovides an online advice pack.