On 8th May 2026, we announced that we will be temporarily pausing our Large Grants to all applicants who are not currently in receipt of our funding, from 12pm on 27 May 2026, reopening in August 2026.
To minimise inconvenience to potential applicants, we are pausing this part of Our Funds over the summer months which are typically quieter.
Why are we taking this approach?
When we launched our new strategy in October 2020, we made a commitment to embed cycles of learning and continuous improvement across all our work.
Our decision comes in the context of a significant and sustained increase in demand for our Large Grants.
The increase in applications is putting pressure on our available budget and our team’s capacity, meaning that we’re not able to assess all applications within our published turnaround times (which we have already extended) and our success rate across Our Funds has reduced to 48%.
We know that many applicants are now using generative artificial technology (AI) to support their applications, and we expect that the increase in demand is partly due to the increased use of AI. This is resulting in more generic, lower quality applications which lack strong alignment with our themes and priorities.
We have made the decision to pause Large Grants to all applicants who are not currently in receipt of funding and eligible to reapply. This is based on insights from the data we collate across Our Funds. For example, we know that new/first-time applicants, as well as applicants who have not held a grant from us under our current strategy, are more likely to apply to our other funds. 75% of our Wee Grant applicants, 75% of Community Spaces applicants and 54% of Small Grant applicants in the last financial year were not ‘returning’ applicants, compared to only 46% of Large Grants. We want to honour our commitment to existing grant holders whom we’d already advised could re-apply for further funding within the final 6 months of their grant.
Additionally, the success rate for new/first-time applicants to our Large Grants is low, with only 37% successful in the last financial year. This is much lower than the overall success rate for Large Grants in the last financial year, at 71%, and lower than the success rate for new applicants applying to our other Funds (43% for Community Spaces, 49% for Small Grants and 50% for Wee Grants).
We don’t want applicants to spend time on a full application with a low chance of success. In line with our commitment to learning and continuous improvement, in August 2026, we plan to reopen our Large Grants with a new 2-stage process that will enable our team to give a clearer steer to potential applicants early on. It will also involve a lighter touch first stage, requiring less investment of time from applicants and our Funding Team upfront. We look forward to sharing more details about the new 2-stage process in due course.
What does this mean for applicants?
For current grant holders
We’ll continue to accept Large Grants applications from returning applicants so as not to create a cliff-edge when their current funding is approaching its end.
That means 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’ll 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 the 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 for using AI here.
What’s next?
We hope this update will be a helpful guide for potential applicants to Large Grants and we will continue to share updates on our website when available, ahead of reopening in August 2026.
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.
We will always aim to make decisions in a way which is fair and transparent, in keeping with the IVAR Open and Trusting principles for flexible funding. Feedback on this approach to pausing a fund is welcome. You can send any comments or suggestions to trtcomms@therobertsontrust.org.uk.
Thank you for your patience and look forward to sharing details of our new Large Grants application process in the coming weeks.