Masonic Charitable Foundation – Early Years with a Focus on Poverty and Neglect

There is particular interest in funding targeted interventions that support children (ages 0 to 5 years) who are living in the most disadvantaged circumstances due to poverty and may be a risk of or are experiencing neglect.

Interventions, for example, that:

• Increase the likelihood of children achieving developmental milestones.
• Support children to make successful transitions to primary school.
• Improve children’s physical health through access to healthcare, nutrition, check-ups, immunisations, etc.
• Give families a better understanding of their child’s needs and improve confidence in parenting/caring so they are better able to meet the child’s needs.
• Increase families’ positive engagement in services, enabling targeted support to address specific issues, such as domestic violence, mental health, substance abuse, and neglect.
• Help to meet a child’s basic needs as part of a wider programme of intervention or support.

There are two funding levels:

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

As a general rule, MFC would not tend 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 the relevant Central registry of the respective Guernsey, Jersey or Isle of Man 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.

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.

How To Apply

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.