IMPORTANT NOTICE: From 30th September 2023 the Southall Trust will no longer be accepting grant applications for work or projects that are delivered outside of the UK.

What We Support

We award grants to charitable organisations in the UK that are focussed upon at least one of the following four areas (please click on a category for more information):

  1. Quaker Work & Witness
  2. Peace & Reconciliation
  3. Environmental Action & Sustainability
  4. Social Action

The majority of our grants are for one year, and for up to £5,000.

We will consider multi-year funding (up to three years), but this is typically reserved for charities that we have supported in the past.

We will consider appeals for an organisation's core and capital costs.

We look most favourably upon the following:

  • Projects that encourage wider support of the categories listed above
  • Projects where grants of up to £5,000 will make a quantifiable difference (we prefer to support smaller grassroots charities with 'seed corn' funding)
  • Organisations that have shown creativity and innovation in their work
  • Organisations that promote social justice, inclusion and diversity
  • Organisations that challenge structural inequalities and injustice
  • Organisations that can demonstrate clear support from the communities in which they are based and/or operate (e.g. by attracting local volunteers and/or local financial support)
  • Organisations that are engaged with the communities around them (e.g. through local partnership working)

What we do not support

We do not consider appeals from the following:

  • Individuals
  • Organisations that are not constituted as charitable within the UK (non-registered UK charities may be considered, but should be clearly constituted for public benefit and have an 'asset lock' within their constitution - please contact us before applying)
  • Organisations with a typical annual income and/or assets in excess of £1m (exceptions may be made for charities that are a particularly strong fit in our category areas and meet most of our criteria - please contact us before applying)
  • Organisations that have a primary objective that is not aligned to the Southall Trust's areas of interest
  • Organisations spending less than 80% of their annual expenditure on charitable activities
  • Organisations that do not have a clear financial reserves policy
  • Organisations that are unable to demonstrate good compliance with their regulator's requirements (e.g. charities with overdue annual returns)
  • Organisations that do not have at least one set of publicly-available annual accounts
  • Organisations advancing or promoting a particular religion (exceptions are made only for the work of the Religious Society of Friends and organisations that are clearly aligned with and/or connected to it)
  • Emergency appeals, or applications for emergency relief work
  • Private schools
  • Medical organisations (exceptions may be considered for charities focussed on supporting those in financial poverty - please contact us before applying) 
  • Counselling services
  • Animal welfare organisations
  • Retrospective funding (i.e. funding for a project or work that has already taken place)