Our Large Grants are for registered charities working in Scotland with an annual income of over £200,000 and up to £2 million, that support people who are experiencing (or are at high risk of experiencing) poverty and associated trauma.
You can apply under any of our four funding themes. We consider applications on a rolling basis, meaning you can apply at any time, using the link within the full guidance below.
Due to a significant and sustained increase in demand for our Large Grants, we have decided to temporarily pause this fund to Large Grant applicants who are not currently in receipt of our funding, from 12pm on 27 May 2026, reopening by the end of August 2026. To minimise inconvenience to potential applicants, we are pausing this part of Our Funds over the summer months which are typically quieter.
The ongoing level of demand we are seeing is unprecedented and is beyond our team’s capacity to process within our published timescales. We are also seeing an increased use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) resulting in more generic, lower quality applications which lack strong alignment with our themes and priorities. At present, we have a considerable backlog of applications and are working hard to assess these over the coming months, within the available budget for Our Funds.
In line with our commitment to learning and continuous improvement, we plan to introduce a new, streamlined, two-stage application process for our Large Grants by the end of August 2026. Our aim is to manage demand more effectively, improve the success rate, and for our team to be better able to support applicants.
For current grant holders
For current grant holders who are within the final 6 months of their existing Large Grant and eligible to reapply – it is business as usual. You can apply any time under our current 1-stage process, until the end of August when our new 2-stage process launches.
For all other applicants
We will fully assess all Large Grant applications received by 12pm on 27 May 2026 under our current process. We cannot consider any applications received after this date until we re-open with our new process by the end of August.
Please note that we are not changing our funding criteria. If you don’t have an immediate need for funding, we strongly recommend waiting to apply when Large Grants reopen in August. We also ask that you are mindful when using AI for your application, please refer to our guide and tips here.
To find out more about our rationale for this approach, please see our blog.
We would also like to take this opportunity to highlight our new Big Change Fund, which opened on 27 April 2026, as a potential other source of funding. Our Big Change Grants are projected restricted funding, focused on big change that lasts within our theme of Financial Security, for eligible organisations with annual incomes over £200,000.
Thank you for your patience and we look forward to sharing details of our new Large Grants application process in the coming weeks. You can sign up to our newsletter here or follow our social channels to keep up to date.
Please read our full guidance on applying for a Large Grant before completing your application form. You will find the link to our online application form within the full guidance.
You can have also have a look inside our application form in our sample form.
For more details of the kind of work we fund, take a look at Who and what we fund, and for information about the other grants we offer, see Our Funds.