Grant Making Policy

The Trustees make discretionary grants where they believe that their contribution will make a real difference. What follows is the open application grant-making policy for The Macaulay Moat Foundation’s rolling grants programme, from which the vast majority of grants are awarded.

Applications are taken all year round and from all areas of England and Wales. They are assessed three times a year.

We receive many more applications than we are able to support. Please read the following information carefully and only consider applying if you are confident you fit our eligibility criteria.

Eligibility

Applications will be considered from:

  • Charities, including CIOs, registered in any part of England and Wales
  • Exempt Charities as defined in schedule 3 of the Charities Act 2011
  • Community Interest Companies (CIC) and Companies Limited by Guarantee
  • Constituted groups with a management committee and bank account
  • Christian churches
  • Social entrepreneurs

Applications will not be considered from:

  • Individuals
  • Charities registered outside of England and Wales
  • Organisations with an annual turnover of more than £100,000
  • Political parties
  • Animal charities
  • Companies limited by shares
  • Organisations with over 12 month’s operating costs in reserves
  • Organisations applying under the Autism priority which only provide autism support as a smaller part of a wider programme of work

We are happy to fund projects in the early stages of development as this is often a difficult time for an organisation to secure grants. Therefore, we do not make it a requirement to have published your first set of accounts. In these cases, we do, however, expect a clear budget and fundraising strategy.

Grant Making Process

Step 1

Submit a Stage One application on our website. This is a short form which will help us assess whether you are the right fit for The Macaulay Moat Foundation without taking up too much of your time.

To view the Stage One application form, please head to the “Apply” page.

Step 2

If we are interested in getting to know you and your project better, we will get in touch to invite you to the second stage. At stage 2 we ask applicants to provide a 5 minute video which will be presented to the trustees at the decision making panel.

Step 3

Following the decision making panel, we will be in touch with the outcome of your application. If you are unsuccessful at this stage, we suggest you do not reapply unless we approach you to do so. 

Grant Purposes, Sizes and Restrictions

Categories

Applications must be for charitable purposes. Our priority focus areas are as follows:

• Autism support – only organisations with the sole focus of supporting autistic people.

• Church Outreach – this includes churches and Christian charities delivering projects to meet a social need in their community.

What we will fund

We want each applicant to be honest about what their organisation really needs. Therefore, we are very flexible on the type of funding for which applicants may apply, and Trustees will consider contributions towards core costs, salaries, capital items as well as specific projects. The only exclusion is grants for buildings i.e. repairs, renovations, extensions. 

Grant Size

The maximum grant size is £5,000 per year. We welcome applications for multi-year awards up to a maximum of 2 years.

Grants are usually made as single payments. In the case of multi-year awards, payments will be made on an annual basis following the submission of a brief annual progress report.

For successful applicants, we may also offer you an optional package of mentoring and fundraising expertise from our partner Futurekraft. As part of this support, they will help you get into the best position possible to secure further grant funding and develop a healthy organisation.

The Two Page Proposal should include:

Details

1. A summary of the project you want to fund (if you are applying for core costs, please provide a summary of the whole organisation’s activities.

2. Evidence of need for your project or organisation

3. Details of any impact you’ve made to date

4. The difference you want to make to the community your serve

5. The difference this funding will make to your organisation

6. Fundraising Plan

Attachments

• Budget for the work you are asking us to fund including secured and/or anticipated income. If you are applying for core costs, please provide a whole organisation budget. If you are requesting multi-year funding, to the best of your ability, please try to estimate income and expenditure for the requested funding term.

• A copy of a recent bank statement

• If you produce annual accounts, and they are NOT available on the Charity Commission website, please attach.

• If you are a new organisation and have not yet completed a full financial year, please attach a copy of your current management accounts (income and expenditure to date)

• If you are applying for capital items over £1,000, please attach quotes.

• A copy of your constitution if you are not registered with the Charity Commission or Companies House.

Application Assessment Outcome

Grants are awarded entirely at the discretion of the trustees and their decision is final. You will be informed of the decision within two weeks of the assessment. All successful applicants must agree to the following obligations:

• Confirm receipt;

• Grant may only be spent for the purposes for which it was given.

• Any unused portion of the grant is to be returned to the charity.

• Report back on how the grant was spent;

• Report back on the impact the grant had.

For information on our data protection, safeguarding and due diligence, please head to our privacy policy page.