Our charitable objects cover most areas of charitable activity so we are potentially able to make grants to a wide range of organisations. However, all grants are made within the grant-making programmes set out below.
All our grants are given to other charities (though we are prepared to consider charities excepted from registration). We support charities operating UK-wide where they meet our criteria though most of our grants are to local charities based in Scotland.
Please note that we only make grants to organisations (not to individuals). We do not fund local organisations outside Scotland.
We now have three grant-making programmes – see the detailed pages on each programme using the links below:
- Planned Grants – Regular grants (normally now £500/year, occasionally more) to a small number of national charities.
- Responsive Grants – This is our main grantmaking programme where we respond to applications received. We aim to make at least twelve responsive grants per year of at least £500 each, although more grants or larger amounts may be awarded when we have sufficient funds.
- Large/Blue Sky Grants – Each year we will be inviting bids for a one-off grant of £20,000 or £25,000 in a very specific field – normally we look to fund something which we believe is important in a field where there is relatively little being done at present. From 2021 these are described as Blue Sky grants though in the past we simply used the term Large Grants. Over the years, the themes of our large grants vary between different charitable aims. See the large grants page for details.
For more details of grant-making policy, please see the appropriate grants pages. Unless you meet the specific categories for a Blue Sky grant, all new applications should be made to the Responsive Grants programme.