The Bishop Radford Trust: Foundation Grants

Overview

Foundation Grants are one-off that rarely exceed £2,000.

Grant Eligibility Criteria

• The Bishop Radford Trust supports Christian activities in the UK and overseas, through churches and UK registered Christian charities.
• This is an application for a new project which has not been funded by this trust in the last three years.

1. When giving to projects based overseas they tend to give through established Christian UK registered charities, recognising that due diligence is more challenging with these donations.
2. For grants awarded within the UK, Trustees tend to give to smaller charities where their contribution makes a significant difference.
3. They prefer to support projects where the apparent need is great and the potential scale of the impact is substantial.
4. They don’t often support individuals however they recognise that a contribution to core running costs is valuable.
5. Advocacy work/campaigning and lobbying related work are not usually supported. This is an area they are less involved with.
6. They sometimes support pilot tests, but they prefer to focus on projects that have a track record.
7. They don’t have sufficient resources to fund all requests. They favour projects which spark interest and passion. As a general rule, if they cannot award funds ourselves, they do try to help to redirect grantees.

What criteria increase the chances of the grant request being successful?

• It is helpful to supply a detailed budget breakdown showing how the money will be spent.
• Impact measurement: they like to see clearly defined projected outcomes from the activity with measurable targets.
• It is helpful if you can show you consider environmental and diversity and inclusion factors.
• If you can demonstrate any element is match funded.
• They believe it is good practice to look for other sources of funding. If 50% or more of the funds for the total project have been raised elsewhere, this increases the likelihood of their supporting the grant.
• The Trustees tend to favour smaller charities and organisations over larger organisations, as it is felt this is where our impact may be the greatest.

The Trust has 4 other grant types, which are by invitation only - Strategic Grants, Collaborative Grants, Development Grants, Partnership Grants.