Apply for funding

Who can apply

Zero Hour © Credit Henri Antonio - Two people holding campaign flags outside the UK Parliament, with Big Ben in the background, during a climate and nature advocacy event

We are a small grantmaker that receives many more applications than we can support. This high level of demand means we can only fund the applications that demonstrate the strongest fit with our criteria. We publish our application success rates annually in our annual report and accounts.

Current Funding Guidelines PDF

BASIC ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

For your application to be considered, you must meet all of the following eligibility criteria. We are unable to make exceptions to these criteria, due to the volume of applications we receive.

Have an annual income of between £100,000 and £10,000,000, evidenced by your most recent published accounts. We do not fund organisations below or above this income range. The only exception to this is for environmental organisations acting as intermediaries for work happening in the UK Overseas Territories.

Be a UK registered charity. If you are a campaigning organisation that has strong and clear reasons for not being a UK-registered charity, including not being able to register, then you can apply to us as a company limited by guarantee, including CICs, with an asset lock or as a fiscally hosted organisation. You must meet all of our other funding criteria and the grant will be restricted to specific charitable activities that align with our strategy and charitable purposes. If your organisation is not a charity, including fiscally hosted groups, please review our ‘Frequently asked questions and useful links’ section at the end of this document for more detail.

Be within our geographic remit. You must EITHER:

Have an impact at a national or UK level and be based in the UK. Your organisation can be from any part of the UK and must evidence the difference the work you are doing is having at a national or UK level. National level means your work has an impact across Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland or England only. UK level impact means your work has an impact across two or more of the nations. If you are a local organisation making a difference locally only, without having any influence nationally or at a UK level, then your application will not be successful.

Be delivering environmental work related to the triple planetary crisis in the UK Overseas Territories. More detail about applying for work relating to the UK Overseas Territories can be found in the ‘Frequently asked questions and useful links’ section at the end of this document.

FUNDING WELL-RUN ORGANISATIONS

We fund organisations that are well-run. For us, this means organisations that demonstrate track record of effectiveness and impact, strong governance and management, effective financial management, and are collaborative and cross-sectoral. We have set out below our views on what this means:

Track record of effectiveness and impact – this could mean a good understanding of the needs being met and how best to tackle them, i.e. an evidence base for your work; awareness of how your work adds value and relates to and complements the work of others; effective systems to monitor and review progress; a culture of learning, reflection and improvement; and being alert to opportunities for wider impact.

Strong governance and management – this means a diverse organisation with a skilled, experienced and engaged board, and strong and inspiring leadership that is delivering on the organisation’s objectives, including an understanding of the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses.

Effective financial management – this means a thorough understanding and oversight of finances across the Board and leadership team, including good financial management processes, a reserves policy that is being followed, and a demonstrable funding need, i.e. not holding excessive free reserves outside of your organisation’s reserves policy, such as unspent, unrestricted or designated funds, unless there is a clear Board approved reason for doing so.

Collaborative and cross-sectoral – this means working with others, including those with shared and different perspectives and from across different sectors, in order to work more effectively and achieve shared goals.

Before applying, you may find it helpful to complete our eligibility quiz which can be accessed by clicking here.

To make an application to us, you need to use our online portal to create an online account. You can create a new account or log in to an existing account by clicking here.