The Which? Fund
Overview
The Which? Fund offers grants to support research projects aiming to improve understanding of the specific consumer harms these communities experience, and develop evidence-based solutions.
What they fund
They fund specific, strategic projects, with the potential to benefit large numbers of people by changing policy, regulation or practice.
The Which? Fund seeks to address the consumer harms experienced by diverse and disadvantaged communities, by funding specific, strategic projects, with the potential to benefit large numbers of people by changing policy, regulation or practice.
But what does that actually mean?
Consumer harm takes many and varied forms, and is often difficult to spot. Consumer harms include:
- When choices are complicated, making it hard for consumers to find the option that is right for them, or to make an informed decision.
- When businesses take unfair advantage of consumers, for example using information they know about certain people to charge them more than others or where it’s so hard to resolve problems and complaints that consumers end up out of pocket.
- When poor safety standards or criminal scams put consumers in physical danger, or cause stress, financial losses or other emotional harm.
They know that different groups of consumers can experience different consumer harms, and be affected in different ways. They want to make sure that the voices of all consumers are heard and that the issues facing diverse and disadvantaged communities are tackled.
They understand that, in some cases, other organisations who work more closely with specific communities, or who have specialist technical skills, will be better placed than Which? to complete this work. The Which? Fund is their way of supporting these groups, to help ensure that they live up to their ambition of tackling the harms facing all consumers.
What's on offer
The Which? Fund offers restricted grant funding to allow UK charities, universities and not-for-profit Community Interest Companies to undertake new research exploring the consumer harms faced by diverse and disadvantaged communities, or identifying and testing innovative solutions to these issues. This means they fund specific projects seeking to understand what’s going on for different groups of consumers, or trying to find ways to tackle problems.
Their pot of funding is limited, so to maximise the impact of their spend, they seek to fund specific, strategic projects which, by generating evidence, have the potential to benefit large numbers of people by changing policy, regulation or practice. Sadly, the Which? Fund is not suitable for funding service delivery projects - they know this important work takes significant investment over long periods of time, and that’s not something they are able to support.
To help you get a sense of what types of project they fund, here are details of all their grants so far.
Who can apply?
We offer funding to registered charities based in the UK, not-for-profit Community Interest Companies (CICs) and UK universities
For charities and CICs, they have a set of supplementary criteria. These are about making sure the organisations they fund demonstrate best-practice governance, to help them manage the risk of providing charitable funding.
If you’re a charity
They only fund UK-registered charities that have:
- a Board of at least five independent trustees or directors;
- its own bank account; and,
- at least one set of annual accounts published on the Charity Commission website, covering a 12 month operating period.
They also ask that charities do not have significant unrestricted reserves, defined as in excess of 12 months operating costs, as this will often suggest you could fund the proposed work yourself. They are also unable to fund organisations in serious financial deficit, or who have recently reported a serious incident to the Charity Commision.
If you’re a Community Interest Company
They can only fund not-for-profit Community Interest Companies, to ensure that their money is spent in line with their own charitable objectives. Your CIC can be incorporated as a privatecompany limited by guarantee or a private company limited by shares under Schedule 2 of the Companies Act, but must have:
- a not-for-profit clause in your company articles;
- an asset-lock in place; and
- at least three independent non-executive directors.
Call for applications
In this call for applications, the Which? Fund will offer grants to support work aiming to:
- Improve understanding of consumer harms affecting diverse and disadvantaged communities, including novel harms in digital markets.
- Identify and test evidence-led, pragmatic solutions to consumer harm.
- Develop partnerships and encourage collaborative working to provide a more powerful voice for all UK consumers.
They want to support high quality, high impact research and analysis, that provides new insight into markets and finds opportunities to make life for consumers:
- Simpler – by identifying where complexity is hindering consumers’ abilities to make informed decisions;
- Fairer – by working out where firms may be taking unfair advantage of information asymmetries or other forms of market power (for example to charge consumers more than a fair price), or where consumers are denied redress when things go wrong; and
- Safer – by spotting where criminality or poor standards put consumers in danger: physically, emotionally, or financially.
This research should build on what is already known, bringing new evidence and identifying innovative solutions. They want to achieve real change, so insight must be targeted to audiences with the power to make a difference, and communicated in a compelling way. They are keen to support organisations using innovative methodologies to uncover consumer harm.
2024/25 funding programmes
Consumer harm is experienced in a very wide range of markets, and we are seeking applicants’ ideas on the most pressing problems facing diverse and disadvantaged communities. This year, we have two funding calls:
a) Projects exploring consumer harms experienced by diverse and disadvantaged communities.
In some circumstances, certain groups of consumers – for example, women, people living with disabilities or health conditions, low-income households or members of diverse ethnic communities – might be exposed to more harm than other groups, or experience different harms. To maximise the synergies between this initiative and their own work – and thus the impact – applications should also align with one of Which?’s Impact themes, described below:
1. ENSURING FAIR FINANCIAL SERVICES
They want to make sure that consumers are able to find financial products that work for them, are treated fairly and get good value for money.
2. FIGHTING CONSUMER RIP-OFFS
From overcharging and selling shoddy or unsafe products to providing unacceptable customer service and complaint resolution, we want to make sure businesses play fair and are held to account when they let consumers down.
3. ENABLING CONSUMERS TO MAKE SUSTAINABLE CHOICES
They want to support consumers by making the shift towards sustainable consumption more affordable and easier for all, and ensuring that consumers who want to make changes get the support they need to do so.
4. ENSURING FAIR AND SAFE DIGITAL GOODS AND SERVICES
They want to make sure that businesses and the government do what they can to enable consumers to participate safely and fairly in our increasingly digital world, with confidence that their information is being kept safe from misuse or fraud.
b) Projects exploring consumer harms experienced by diverse and disadvantaged communities in digital markets
Information asymmetries, malign online choice architecture, automated decision-making, AI interfaces, dynamic pricing and other characteristics of digital markets can place consumers at a distinct disadvantage, and some groups may face greater detriment than others. Consumers may face financial harm when they pay over the odds for goods and services, physical harm when they buy unsafe products online, or psychological harm when their data is used in ways they are not comfortable with. Examples could include online choice architecture designed to manipulate consumer behaviour which has a greater impact on some groups, algorithmic systems which create biased outcomes which disadvantage certain groups, inaccessible customer service chatbots or sensitive personal data being collected excessively or used inappropriately.
Funding
There is a total of £75,000 of funding available in 2024/25.
They expect to fund a small number of high-quality projects, although there is no maximum or minimum limit on the funds that can be applied for from the available fund. You are advised to cost your project based on what you need.
Projects should take up to 12 months to complete. An organisation can only submit one application for funding per funding round. Organisations which have received grant funding from the Consumers’ Association in the last 12 months are not eligible to apply.
They are only able to fund costs which are directly attributable to work furthering the Consumer Associations’ charitable purposes.
For charities, they are happy to cover staff salaries and a reasonable amount of core costs/ overheads, in proportion to the size of the project. Staff costs should be completed for each member of staff employed on the project to be funded. Where staff costs are sought, the budget should show the number of days, daily rates and the annual salary from which this derives. Non-salary costs and overheads should be specified separately, and applicants should be fully transparent about how costs have been calculated. Capital costs for equipment will only be funded where specifically required to complete a project.
For UK higher education institutions (HEIs) and not-for-profit Community Interest Companies, they will fund all direct costs related to the management and delivery of the project, but theye will not pay indirect costs. This means they will cover the costs explicitly identifiable as arising from the project, charged on the basis of the amount spent, through auditable accounts, including the costs for the time staff spend directly on the project, and a share of the directly allocated costs required to complete a project, but not solely relating to it, based on estimated shared use.
Who can apply
- UK charities,
- UK universities, and
- not-for-profit Community Interest Companies.
For charities and CICs, they have a set of supplementary criteria. These are about making sure the organisations they fund demonstrate best-practice governance, to help them manage the risk of providing charitable funding.
If you’re a charity
To help them assure that your organisation is well-managed and to manage the risk they take when providing funding, they only fund UK-registered charities that have:
- a Board of at least five independent trustees or directors;
- its own bank account; and,
- at least one set of annual accounts published on the Charity Commission website, covering a 12 month operating period.
They also ask that charities do not have significant unrestricted reserves, defined as in excess of 12 months operating costs, as this will often suggest you could fund the proposed work yourself. They are also unable to fund organisations in serious financial deficit, or who have recently reported a serious incident to the Charity Commision.
If you’re a Community Interest Company
They can only fund not-for-profit Community Interest Companies, to ensure that their money is spent in line with their own charitable objectives. Your CIC can be incorporated as a privatecompany limited by guarantee or a private company limited by shares under Schedule 2 of the Companies Act, but must have:
- a not-for-profit clause in your company articles;
- an asset-lock in place; and
- at least three independent non-executive directors.
Eligible Costs
They are only able to fund costs which are directly attributable to work furthering the Consumer Associations’ charitable purposes.
For charities,they are happy to cover staff salaries and a reasonable amount of core costs/ overheads, in proportion to the size of the project.
Staff costs should be completed for each member of staff employed on the project to be funded. Where staff costs are sought, the budget should show the number of days, daily rates and the annual salary from which this derives. Non-salary costs and overheads should be specified separately, and applicants should be fully transparent about how costs have been calculated.
Capital costs for equipment will only be funded where specifically required to complete a project. They will not normally fund overseas travel. The Consumers Association reserves the right not to fund overhead costs where they cannot be reasonably justified or they are not satisfied with the applicant’s explanation.
For UK higher education institutions (HEIs) and not-for-profit Community Interest Companies, they will fund all direct costs related to the management and delivery of the project, but they will not pay indirect costs. This means they will cover the costs explicitly identifiable as arising from the project, charged on the basis of the amount spent, through auditable accounts, including the costs for the time staff spend directly on the project, and a share of the directly allocated costs required to complete a project, but not solely relating to it, based on estimated shared use. They will not fund indirect costs which cannot be directly allocated to the project and would be incurred irrespective of the project, for example estates costs and central services.
It is the responsibility of the organisation applying for funding to identify whether this would attract VAT, and to include it in the proposal if necessary.
NOTE: In stage 1 (outline) applications, only an estimated total of costs is required. A full breakdown of costing information will be sought in the Stage 2 (Full) application form.