Applying for an Improving Lives grant for
your organisation
The purpose of these guidelines is to assist organisations considering making an application to our Improving Lives Fund (grants for organisations). We appreciate the time and effort that goes into fundraising, so we hope that this guidance on our funding criteria and application process provides clear and explicit information, enabling you to be as informed as possible in making an application.
If, after reading the guidelines, you are still unsure about your organisation’s eligibility or the application process, you are encouraged to contact the National Benevolent Charity to discuss your proposed application.
Our Organisation Grants Manager, Vicky Oram-Ahern, can be contacted on vicky.oram@natben.org.uk or 01666 846 773 and is available to support applicants throughout the process.
What is the aim of our grant making?
We aim to make grants to a wide range of organisations working to alleviate poverty and improve lives in Bristol, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire & Swindon.
What are our funding criteria?
1. Poverty
Organisations need to demonstrate that their primary service users are experiencing poverty and that their funded activity aims to alleviate that poverty. For the purposes of our grant-making we align ourselves with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation definition of poverty ‘when your resources are well below your minimum needs. Poverty means struggling to pay for essentials and to participate in society'.
2. Geographical areas of interest
We focus on geographical areas where we can build our knowledge and understanding of communities, to ensure our grant-making is informed by local needs and priorities. We therefore only support organisations delivering work in (at least) one of our geographical areas of interest: Bristol, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire & Swindon.
3. Priority areas
Through our funding we aim to tackle poverty and to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged. We do this by providing home essentials, financial, emotional, and practical support, advice, and training. We aim to help people live in reasonable comfort, to improve their physical and psychological wellbeing and to increase their capacity to engage positively in society. We will fund work that supports outcomes in one or more of the following areas:
i) Supporting people in destitution/ crisis
ii) Opportunities for employment/ education/ training
iii) Strengthening families and/ or communities
iv) Financial resilience
Full guidelines, including more information on what we mean by these priority areas will be added here in January 2026.
Who can apply?
We only make grants to support activity which is charitable by law. Organisations do not have to be registered charities to apply, however they do need to be a not-for-profit organisation and have an agreed constitution.
We are principally looking to support frontline organisations working with marginalised people and grassroots community organisations. Preference will be given to local organisations.
Where organisations have had two consecutive years of funding, we ask that they wait 12 months from the end of their grant period before reapplying.
Please see our latest Impact Report for some examples of recent grants to organisations.
How do we fund?
The organisations we support are the experts on the ground and we trust that they will utilise funding in the most valuable way to their service users. Therefore our preference is to provide unrestricted funding over a period of one or two years.
Please note that in 2026, while we carry out our strategic review and pilot a new way of funding, we will be making fixed, one-year, unrestricted grants.
What don't we fund?
Grant requests which we do not normally support are:
- Projects that exclusively serve religious purposes.
- Political campaigns and legislative lobbying efforts.
- Organisations established solely for the relief or benefit of animals or plants.
- Retrospective or deficit funding.
- One-off conferences or events, except where these fall within a wider context that aligns with our charitable objects.
What is our application process for Bristol?
We are committed to supporting as many organisations as possible while we carry out our strategic review and pilot a new way of funding. This means to continue to work efficiently and use our funds effectively, we have simplified our grant-making.
In Bristol, we will continue to support the 15 organisations we have partnered with on our main grants programme over the past two years, so our main grants programme will not be open to new applications in Bristol during this period.
From Tuesday 27th January 2026, we will remain open to applications for small one-off grants of up to £2,000 – these will be considered throughout the year and outside of our grants panel meetings, so they are not subject to our internal panel deadlines. If you are interested in applying for a small grant, please get in touch on 01666 505 500 or email office@natben.org.uk - we’re happy to talk it through. An application form will be available from 27th January 2026.
What is our application process for Gloucestershire?
In 2026, we will offer in the region of 15 one-year unrestricted grants of £7,500 (fixed amount) to organisations working to relieve poverty in Gloucestershire. We expect to open the fund on Tuesday 27th January, with planned closing dates on Friday 20th March (for a June outcome) and Friday 24th July (for an October outcome).
Please submit your application online using the Stage One application form at the bottom of this page (this will be made available when the fund opens).
From Tuesday 27th January 2026, we will remain open to applications for small one-off grants of up to £2,000 – these will be considered throughout the year and outside of our grants panel meetings, so they are not subject to our internal panel deadlines. If you are interested in applying for a small grant, please get in touch on 01666 505 500 or email office@natben.org.uk- we’re happy to talk it through. An application form will be available from 27th January 2026.
Where organisations have had two consecutive years of funding, we ask that they wait 12 months from the end of their grant period before reapplying.
What is our application process for
Wiltshire & Swindon?
In 2026, we will offer in the region of 15 one-year unrestricted grants of £7,500 (fixed amount) to organisations working to relieve poverty in Wiltshire & Swindon. We expect to open the fund on Tuesday 27th January, with planned closing dates on Friday 20th March (for a June outcome) and Friday24th July (for an October outcome).
Please submit your application online using the Stage One application form at the bottom of this page (this will be made available when the fund opens).
From Tuesday 27th January 2026, we will remain open to applications for small one-off grants of up to £2,000 – these will be considered throughout the year and outside of our grants panel meetings, so they are not subject to our internal panel deadlines. If you are interested in applying for a small grant, please get in touch on 01666 505 500 or email office@natben.org.uk- we’re happy to talk it through. An application form will be available from 27thJanuary 2026.
Where organisations have had two consecutive years offunding, we ask that they wait 12 months from the end of their grant periodbefore reapplying.
What happens next?
We aim to contact all applicants within two weeks. Organisations that have a good chance of success will be invited to attend a virtual meeting. We will share in advance the areas we wish to discuss, giving organisations time to prepare.
How do we make decisions?
Following the virtual meeting, your application will be presented to the grants panel. All applications are assessed against the following:
- The organisation – assessing the applicant’s skills and capacity to carry out the work effectively.
- The work – assessing the outcomes of the work proposed and how it aligns with our charitable objects.
Timescales
- For grants for up to £2,000, we aim to reach an outcome within two months.
- For our larger grants you will receive an outcome three months from the application deadline.
What happens once we have made a decision?
All unsuccessful applicants will receive feedback – via email (and phone call should they wish). There is no right of appeal.
If you are successful, we will notify you via email to ensure that we have all the relevant details for electronic banking, and for grants over £2,000 we will also send a grant agreement setting out our standard terms and conditions to accepting the grant.
What reporting do we expect?
We aim for our monitoring and reporting to be proportionate and light touch. We typically ask organisations to let us know when they have produced an annual report and/or impact report and we will use this in place of a more formal written report. Occasionally we may ask to visit an organisation or for information for our own impact reporting.
Please see full guidelines (to be made available in January 2026) for more details on our application process.
