Masonic Charitable Foundation – Children and Young People Grants Programme (Domestic Abuse)`

The funding is for registered charities working with children who have experienced domestic violence and thus are more likely to struggle with mental health problems, low self-worth, develop unhealthy coping mechanisms and may begin to repeat behaviours seen in their domestic setting.

There is particular interest in funding projects that work with vulnerable and disadvantaged children and families towards the following outcomes:

• Learning coping strategies and tools to effectively handle challenges
• Increased self-esteem, resilience, confidence, and feelings of safety and wellbeing
• Families experience positive behavioural changes
• Children will have better relationships with their family and peers
• Decreased feelings of anxiety and isolation
• Improved engagement with education and other related support services.

There are two funding levels:

• Small grants of between £1,000 and £5,000 per year for up to three years are available to charities with an income of between £25,000 and £500,000.
• Large grants of between £10,000 and £60,000 in total which can be spread over one to three years are available to charities with an annual income of between £500,000 and £5 million.

As a general rule, MFC would tend not to fund more than 20% of an organisation’s income per year.

Charities can only apply for one grant programme at a time.

Applications are accepted from registered charities.

To be eligible, applicants must:

• Be registered with the Charity Commission or relevant Central registry of the respective Guernsey, Jersey or Isle of Man’s government.
• Have at least one year of independently examined or audited accounts published on the Charity Commission website for the registered charity number they are applying from.
• Have their own bank account.
• Have beneficiaries based in England or Wales.

The funding can be used for new/pilot programmes.

Small grants are unrestricted and do not have to be used on a specific purpose, although grant recipients are required to report on how they used the funding.

Large grants are restricted for specific projects with defined goals and budgets, and may be spent on, for example, salaries, equipment, training, monitoring and administration.

There are no deadlines. This is a rolling programme for both Small and Large grants.

The application process is as follows:

• The first step is to complete the online eligibility checker on the MCF website.
• Those who are eligible may then complete a short online Expression of Interest. It takes about a month to receive a response.

MFC aim to reply to expressions of interest within four weeks.

For those invited to submit a full application as part of the:

• Large Grants programme the entire process would last approximately five to six months.
• Small Grants the process would last approximately three months.

Contact the Masonic Charitable Foundation for further information.