Will Charitable Trust

Overview

The Trust provides financial assistance to UK registered or exempt charities whose activities fall within the following three categories:

• care of and services for blind people, and the prevention and/or cure of blindness;
• long-term care of people with learning disabilities either: in a residential care or supported living environment in a way that provides a family environment and wide choice of activities and lifestyle; or: by providing long-term day/employment activities;
• care of and services for people suffering from cancer and their families.

Unrestricted grants

Charities which are eligible may apply for core funding/ongoing costs but must demonstrate a clear need for unrestricted rather than project funding. This need might be related to the pandemic because they understand that income streams will be affected for some time and reserves will have been substantially depleted, and/or to substantial rises in costs because of current economic conditions.

Grants under this programme are unlikely to exceed £10,000 so they will prioritise smaller charities whose annual turnover is such that they are most likely to benefit from an award.

Charities with healthy unrestricted funds are unlikely to be successful under this programme.

Charities are unlikely to receive more than three successive grants under this programme.

Project grants

• They are prepared to support a wide variety of projects; examples of past grants are included in What they need for each field.
• Grants vary in amount, but generally fall within the range of £3,000 to £30,000. The total amount awarded varies from year to year according to available funds.

In the current financial climate, commitments to make future payments are rarely given, with grants normally being one-off annual grants. Charities which have received a grant are encouraged to apply in the next and subsequent years, but should note that only rarely will grants be given to the same charity for four successive years. This does not however mean that a charity that has received three successive grants will not be eligible in future years, just that they would not generally award a grant in year four.

Exceptional grants

The Trustees may occasionally consider larger exceptional grants, but this is unusual and generally confined to charities that they know well and have supported for some time. There is no separate application process for this, and contenders will be identified from the normal grant round.