If you have ever tried to find a grant for a new website, you will know the problem. Most funders are happy to pay for a minibus, a building refit, or a year of a project worker’s salary, but ask them to fund “a website” and you tend to get a polite no. Digital often falls into the awkward gap between capital costs and core costs, and it rarely fits neatly into a project budget.
The good news is that this is changing, and there are more options than most charities realise. The catch is that almost none of them will fund a website because you want a nicer website. They fund the outcome the website delivers. Get that framing right and the door opens. Get it wrong and even the most digital-friendly funder will turn you down.
In this article we’ll cover a rundown of the UK funders most likely to help and some guidance around getting your next website funded.
How to actually get a website funded
A few principles run through every funder above.
Fund the outcome, not the object.
No one is excited about a website. They are excited about more people reaching a service, a process that no longer relies on paper, or a community that can finally engage online. Write your application about that, and let the website be the means.
If no digital funder fits, build it into a bigger bid.
There genuinely are not many funders dedicated to tech and digital infrastructure.
Where a standalone digital grant is not available, the established route is to fold website and digital costs into a project or core funding application as a legitimate delivery cost. Most funders that support organisational change will consider it.
Get a quote first.
Several funders, Fat Beehive among them, expect a supporting quote. A clear scope and a realistic figure from a developer or agency also makes any application stronger, because it shows you have thought the work through.
Check eligibility before you write a word.
Most of these funders run an eligibility quiz or checklist. Programmes, amounts and deadlines change, so always confirm the current detail on the funder’s own site rather than trusting a summary (including this one).
Funding options
The Clothworkers’ Foundation
The clearest funder for digital as a standalone cost. In 2023 the Foundation expanded its Open Grants Programme to treat digital infrastructure as a capital cost, on the basis that the start-up costs of a new website, CRM or app are much like the buildings, vehicles and equipment it has always funded.
- What they fund: One-off capital costs for digital infrastructure, explicitly including new websites, databases, CRM systems and apps, as well as digitising paper-based processes.
- Typical grants: From around £10,000 upwards. Small grants are up to £15,000; large grants are over £15,000. The size depends on the scale of your organisation and the project.
- Who can apply: UK registered charities, CIOs, CICs (limited by guarantee) and special schools, working with disadvantaged or marginalised people. Small grants are for organisations with turnover under £2 million; large grants for those under £10 million. At least half of the people benefiting must fall within one of the Foundation’s ten programme areas.
- The angle: Show the website is core infrastructure that increases your reach, impact or sustainability, not a communications refresh. Projects led by people with lived experience are prioritised.
- Worth knowing: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, but it is competitive. The success rate for eligible applications in 2025 was 28 per cent, so eligibility alone is not enough. Use their eligibility quiz before you spend time on a full application.
Postcode Local Trust (and its regional siblings)
A different shape of funding, and a useful one. Postcode Local Trust, funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, gives unrestricted grants to small charities and good causes. Unrestricted is the word that matters: the money is not tied to a named project, so a new website is a perfectly legitimate use without having to justify it as a digital-inclusion outcome. That makes it one of the cleaner routes to a site, precisely because it fills the gap the dedicated digital funders leave.
- What they fund: Unrestricted funding for small charities and grassroots organisations, spendable on whatever the organisation needs, including a website.
- Typical grants: Up to £25,000, awarded as a single, unrestricted grant rather than against a project budget.
- Who can apply: Charities and good causes with annual income under £1 million, with preference for those under £500,000. Postcode Local Trust covers the West of England. The rest of the country is served by sibling trusts: Postcode Places Trust (east), Postcode Neighbourhood Trust (north), Postcode Society Trust (south), and People’s Postcode Trust (Scotland). Use the postcode finder on their site to land on the right one.
- The angle: Your organisation’s work needs to fit one of the trust’s four funding themes, but the website itself does not need defending as a digital project. The fit test is about the charity, not the line item.
- Worth knowing: Funding is awarded in fixed rounds, not on a rolling basis. There are three rounds in 2026, each open for only a few days with a cap on the number of applications accepted, so prepare your answers in advance using their downloadable question list and apply the moment a round opens. There is no multi-year funding at present, and activities such as promoting religion or medical research are excluded.
WCIT Charity, IT4Good Grants
Run by the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, IT4Good is one of the few funders set up specifically around technology for social good.
- What they fund: IT and digital projects across four themes: education, inclusion, IT for charities, and public understanding of technology. That covers new digital services, websites, accessibility features, apps, analytics and AI.
- Typical grants: Up to £15,000, with larger amounts in exceptional cases.
- Who can apply: UK registered charities, educational establishments, CICs and other formal not-for-profits.
- The angle: They favour innovative use of technology that is scalable and sustainable, and projects where WCIT is the sole or main funder of the IT component. A site that simply replaces an old one is a harder sell than one that demonstrably extends a service.
- Worth knowing: Applications are reviewed at quarterly panel meetings, so check the current deadline before you start. Grants over £5,000 require external referees.
The Access Foundation
The charitable arm of The Access Group, focused squarely on the digital divide. A website can qualify, but only where it genuinely improves access to services for people who would otherwise be excluded.
- What they fund: Digital inclusion projects that help disadvantaged and vulnerable people get online and use digital services.
- Typical grants: Reported ranges vary by source, broadly from £10,000 to £50,000, and up to around £100,000 for larger projects. Funding usually supports a project completed within twelve months.
- Who can apply: UK charities, CICs and CIOs in England, Scotland and Wales. They do not fund individuals, general running costs, or religious and animal charities.
- The angle: The website has to support measurable digital inclusion outcomes, such as the number of people supported or trained, not marketing or general communications. If you cannot tie the site to people getting online who otherwise could not, this is not your funder.
The Fat Beehive Foundation
Small grants, but the most on-the-nose funder on this list if a website is exactly what you need. Funded by the profits of the Fat Beehive digital agency, it exists specifically to help small charities improve their digital presence.
- What they fund: Websites and other digital products for small charities. Note that they explicitly do not fund general IT support such as software and hardware.
- Typical grants: Up to £2,500.
- Who can apply: UK charities with turnover under £1 million.
- The angle: They want to see the social change the digital product enables. You will need a supporting quote for the work, so have a developer or agency lined up before you apply.
- Worth knowing: Grants are awarded twice a year, with trustee meetings in April and October, so plan around those rounds and allow up to three months for a decision.
The National Lottery Community Fund
The largest community funder in the UK, and the route most charities know. It will not fund a website on its own, but it will fund one as part of a wider project where the site is essential to delivery.
- What they fund: Community-led projects across the UK. A new website is eligible when it is essential to delivering a funded project, improving access to services, or supporting engagement with disadvantaged communities.
- Grant sizes: National Lottery Awards for All England gives £300 to £20,000 for projects lasting up to two years, with decisions in around sixteen weeks. Larger programmes such as Reaching Communities start at £10,000 with no fixed upper limit and run into the hundreds of thousands.
- Who can apply: Charities, community and not-for-profit groups, parish and town councils, schools and health bodies. You do not need to be a registered charity for Awards for All.
- The angle: Build the website into the project as a tool for outcomes, such as service delivery, participation or inclusion, rather than listing it as a communications cost. Smaller organisations are prioritised.
Lloyds Bank Foundation
Generous and unrestricted, but narrow on who qualifies. Worth knowing about if your charity sits squarely in one of its themes, and not worth the time if it does not.
- What they fund: Multi-year unrestricted funding for small, specialist charities tackling complex social issues. Unrestricted means a website is a perfectly legitimate use.
- Typical grants: £75,000 over three years, paid in annual instalments, alongside tailored development support.
- Who can apply: Registered charities and CIOs in England and Wales with income between £25,000 and £500,000, whose main focus is one of eight themes: addiction and dependency, asylum seekers and refugees, care leavers, domestic abuse, homelessness, offending, sexual abuse and exploitation, and trafficking and modern slavery.
- The angle: There is nothing to dress up here. If you fit a theme, the unrestricted grant covers a website without further justification. If you are a generalist, this is not your funder.
- Worth knowing: The Foundation is part way through a transformation and is moving all of its programmes to unrestricted funding. The Specialist Programme is due to reopen in summer 2026, so check which programmes are currently open before you plan around it.
The Fore
The closest thing the UK has to a venture investor for small charities, and one of the strongest unrestricted options on this list. The Fore funds the organisation rather than a project, and explicitly welcomes spending aimed at making you more efficient or sustainable, which is exactly where a website belongs.
- What they fund: Unrestricted grants to help small charities and social enterprises grow, strengthen, or become more efficient and resilient. The money can be used for any purpose, including core costs, capital, and systems improvements such as a website.
- Typical grants: Up to £45,000 over one to three years (often less), plus pro bono support from professionals in areas including strategy, IT and finance.
- Who can apply: UK registered charities, CIOs, CICs limited by guarantee and charitable community benefit societies with annual income under £500,000. Open to any sector and any region, with a particular interest in grassroots organisations working with underserved communities.
- The angle: Pitch the website as a step change in reach, efficiency or sustainability, not business as usual. They want to see the grant move your organisation forward.
- Worth knowing: This one needs diary management. Registration opens for one week only, a few times a year, and works on a register-then-invited basis, so you have to catch the window. Take their eligibility quiz before you start.
Where to find more
When the funders above do not fit, these databases and directories are the standard places to look:
- GrantNav (360Giving): A free, searchable database of UK funders who publish their grant data openly. Useful for seeing who has actually funded digital projects like yours.
- Charity Excellence Framework: A free funding finder and grant directory, alongside fundraising health checks.
- Funds Online: A large subscription database of grant-makers, with fees scaled to your charity’s income.
- My Funding Central: Free for organisations with income under £30,000, and available to those under £1 million.
- The Catalyst digital funders list: A directory focused specifically on funders that support digital projects in the UK charity sector.
- UK Community Foundations: A network of local community foundations that distribute funding regionally. Find your nearest one for grants tied to your area.
Search any of these for “digital”, “technology” or “digital inclusion” and you will surface far more than the headline names.
Most of the work in a successful digital funding bid happens before you apply: scoping the project properly, tying it to outcomes a funder will recognise, and getting a realistic quote. If you would like help scoping a website or producing a costed quote to support an application, that is the kind of thing we do. No obligation, and the funders above remain the ones writing the cheques.
