Who and what we fund

Applications now open.

We offer funding to charitable organisations that support people and communities in Scotland who are living with poverty or trauma – this is our overarching focus.

Our funding priorities and decisions are guided and underpinned by our strategy for 2020 - 2030.

Who we fund

Currently, our responsive Our Funds are aimed at constituted community groups and registered charities who are working to alleviate poverty and trauma in Scotland, and who have an annual income of under £2 million.

Charities with an annual income of more than £2 million a year, housing associations and Arms’ Length External Organisations (ALEOs) are not currently eligible for our Large Grants, Small Grants, Wee Grants or Community Vehicle awards.

Our Programme Awards are available to charities with an income over £2million per year. For more information see here.

To be kept informed, please sign up to our mailing list.

What we fund

We provide funding for organisations and initiatives that address:

• Financial security: tackling the financial and material effects of poverty on people and communities
• Emotional wellbeing and relationships: ensuring people have emotional wellbeing, and confidence and strength in their relationships with others
• Education pathways: equipping people for the future by supporting learning and skills
• Work pathways: improving employability services, and employability rates, for key population groups currently underrepresented in the labour market, and overrepresented in low paid, insecure, work.

We will fund work that helps to meet people’s immediate need, recognising that Covid-19 has sharpened this within communities who were already vulnerable to financial hardship and social upheaval.

However, we also aim to help develop solutions and better ways of working for the longer term. Therefore, our funding is also available to:

• build a better understanding of the causes, impacts and potential solutions to poverty and trauma.
• provide early help to people, aimed at preventing or reducing negative experiences and outcomes due to poverty and/or trauma
• improve the design and delivery of support services and systems for people facing poverty, trauma or both
• try out new approaches as well as doing more of what works.

Work we’ll fund can be universal (aimed at a wide group of people or a whole community) or targeted (aimed at a specific group of people) – as long as it shows how it will meet the needs of people at risk of or experiencing poverty, trauma or both.

People affected by poverty and trauma

We are particularly interested in funding those who work with the following groups of people, who we know are more likely to experience poverty or trauma:

• Certain family groups (larger families, single parents, those with care-experienced children)
• Women
• People with a disability
• People from a BAME background
• Asylum seekers and refugees
• People experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage
• People living in certain geographical locations (particularly remote and rural ones)  
• Older people
• Young people under 25

Approaches

We would like to fund organisations and groups that focus on:

Community: organisations that place communities at the centre of their work and aim to build resilience within communities to tackle issues associated with poverty or trauma

Relationships and rights: organisations which take a relational approach to their work and focus on the key principles of fairness, dignity and respect and recognise the impacts that poverty and trauma can have on people’s lives.

Collaboration: organisations that work with others to deliver services or to change how services are delivered for people facing poverty, trauma or both.

Find out more about our Approaches.