John Ellerman Foundation: New Funding Strategy and Priorities

Overview

Their new strategy for 2025 to 2030, which can be read in full by clicking here, continues to commit to their existing aim to advance wellbeing for people, society and the natural world. However, their approach to grantmaking will change. 

They will focus grantmaking on supporting changemaking organisations with a clear understanding of their role within existing and/or new systems and a clear strategy on how they intend to make change, that are committed to advancing justice through the active involvement of individuals and communities with personal or direct experience of the issues they tackle.

Applicants are no longer required to submit applications under their previous funding categories: Arts, Social Action and the Environment. Additionally, they are no longer committing to a dedicated Museums and Galleries Fund. But they wish to retain a leadership role in encouraging environmental funders and others to support environmental work in the UK Overseas Territories. They hope to launch future rounds of the UKOTs Fund from 2025/26 onwards and are actively fundraising for this currently.

For 2025-2030: Who do they support

They are a small grantmaker that receives many more applications than they can support. This high level of demand means they can only fund the applications that demonstrate the strongest fit with their criteria. 

Basic Eligibility Criteria

You must meet all of the following eligibility criteria. They are unable to make exceptions to these criteria, due to the volume of applications received.

1. Have an annual income of between £100,000 and £10,000,000, and have published accounts that evidence this. They do not fund organisations below or above this income range. The only exception to this is for environmental organisations acting as intermediaries for work happening in the UK Overseas Territories.
2. Be a UK registered charity. If you are a campaigning organisation that has strong and clear reasons for not being a UK-registered charity, including not being able to register, then you can apply to them as a company limited by guarantee, including CICs, with an asset lock or as a fiscally hosted organisation. You must meet all of their other funding criteria. 
3. Be within their geographic remit. You must EITHER:
   • Have an impact at a national or UK level and be based in the UK. Your organisation can be from any part of the UK and must evidence the difference the work you are doing is having at a national or UK level. National level means your work has an impact across Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland or England only. UK level impact means your work has an impact across two or more of the nations. If you are a local organisation making a difference locally only, without having any influence nationally or at a UK level, then your application will not be successful. 

OR

• Be delivering environmental work related to the triple planetary crisis in the UK Overseas Territories. More detail about applying for work relating to the UK Overseas Territories can be found in the Funding FAQs section.

Funding Well-run Organisations

They fund organisations that are well-run. This means organisations that demonstrate track record of effectiveness and impact, strong governance and management, effective financial management, and are collaborative and cross-sectoral. We have set out below our views on what this means:

• Track record of effectiveness and impact – this could mean a good understanding of the needs being met and how best to tackle them, i.e. an evidence base for your work; awareness of how your work adds value and relates to and complements the work of others; effective systems to monitor and review progress; a culture of learning, reflection and improvement; and being alert to opportunities for wider impact.
• Strong governance and management – this means a diverse organisation with a skilled, experienced and engaged board, and strong and inspiring leadership that is delivering on the organisation’s objectives, including an understanding of the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Effective financial management – this means a thorough understanding and oversight of finances across the Board and leadership team, including good financial management processes, a reserves policy that is being followed, and a demonstrable funding need, i.e. not holding excessive free reserves outside of your organisation’s reserves policy, such as unspent, unrestricted or designated funds, unless there is a clear Board approved reason for doing so.
• Collaborative and cross-sectoral – this means working with others, including those with shared and different perspectives and from across different sectors, in order to work more effectively and achieve shared goals.

What will they fund

As a grantmaker with direct experience of funding work through our previous strategies relating to the environment, social causes and the arts, we feel well placed to support charitable work that responds to ONE OR MORE of the following:

• Tackling the triple planetary crisis by mitigating and adapting to climate impacts, reducing pollution and protecting and restoring nature.
• Building greater trust and connection, reducing polarisation within society and increasing the levels of participation and influence in the political process (which is sometimes referred to as political equality).
• Promoting the development and adoption of economic models and systems that support people and planet and reduce wealth inequalities.
• Advancing equity and justice for marginalised communities impacted by the issues above.

They are looking to fund organisations that can demonstrate that intrinsic to their approach they are:

• Changemaking organisations. They want to fund organisations that:
  • Understand their role within existing and/or new systems* and the role systems have on people, society and the natural world.
  • Have a clear strategy for how and why they intend to make change in existing and/or new systems, e.g. by challenging long-held orthodoxies and business as usual approaches, including helping us to see the world differently, or pursuing alternative and better approaches for people, society and the natural world, or having evidence-led approaches to policy, advocacy and campaigning work.
  • Are rooted in practical experience alongside their changemaking work.
  • Are engaging with unpopular or difficult causes.

AND

• Committed to advancing justice* through the active involvement of individuals and communities with personal or direct experience of the issues.

They believe a justice led approach helps to secure equity, access and rights, especially for those experiencing exclusion and the most adverse impacts of this age of significant disruption and interconnected global threats.

They want to support work that seeks to advance justice by doing one or more of the following:

• Building power and movements within communities by supporting activism work and community organising.
• Advocating for change on the ‘inside track’, e.g. by improving policy, legislation and/or regulatory frameworks within political, public and corporate sectors.
• Addressing the root causes of injustice, as well as the symptoms.
• Developing alternative ideas and approaches that build new narratives and public understanding of an issue.

*For more details about what they mean by ‘justice’ and ‘systems’, please see the FAQs section by clicking here.

Funding Levels & Notes

They offer multi-year funding for core costs and accept applications for a maximum of £180k over up to five years. 

They provide funding of up to a maximum of £60k per year (e.g. an organisation applying for £180k would need to request this funding over a minimum of three years).

As a small Grants Team taking a light touch approach to grants management, they do not have the capacity to be an organisation’s main funder. As such, applicants are asked to consider the amount they are requesting per year in proportion with their annual income.

Core funding is funding which goes towards the core costs of delivering an organisation’s work. These costs could include:

• staff salaries, training and expenses 
• day-to-day running costs and operations
• monitoring and evaluation, including research
• communications and digital innovation.

Notes

• If most or all of the activity that your organisation undertakes fits with their funding criteria, and you are a UK-registered charity, then you can apply for unrestricted core funding. However, if there are aspects of your work that are not relevant, they ask that you specify where the funds would be directed to within your organisation.
• It is not their preference to provide project funding, as they do not have much experience of this. Organisations applying for project grants must still demonstrate overall alignment with their funding criteria. If you think a project grant would be best, please do discuss with them first.
• They are a Living Wage Funder, which means they are committed to tackling low pay by encouraging the organisations they support to pay the real Living Wage. You can find out more about the Living Wage by clicking here.
  • They want to support their grant-holders to pay their employees the Living Wage as outlined above. Please do consider this when applying for funding to cover salaries within your proposals. The Grants Team may suggest changes to budgets where they think that the Living Wage is not being offered.