Baily Thomas Charitable Fund: General Programme

If your charity works with people with learning disabilities, this is one of the more flexible funders open to you. Funding is normally considered for capital and revenue costs, and for both specific projects and general running or core costs, which is unusually broad wording for a trust of this size.

What they fund
Capital and revenue costs, specific projects, and general running and core costs, with grants from £250. Grants are normally one-off, though exceptionally a new project may be funded over two or three years subject to progress reports. The areas of work that normally fall within policy are capital building, renovation and refurbishment for residential, nursing and respite care and schools; employment schemes; play schemes and play therapy; day and social activities centres including building and running costs; support for families including respite; independent living schemes; support in the community schemes; and snoezelen rooms.

Typical grants
Two streams. Appeals of £9,000 and above go through the general programme and are decided at trustee meetings. Appeals below £9,000 go through the small grants programme, which is capped at £5,000 and decided by the Chair, usually monthly. If the Chair wants to award more than £5,000, the appeal is referred up to the next main board meeting.

Who can apply
Registered charities, or organisations associated with one, including schools, PTAs, community benefit societies and other exempt charities. CICs are not accepted. UK organisations and UK-based projects only, and no grants to individuals. You are expected to be actively fundraising and should not ask for the full project cost. The Fund is linked to the Rix-Thompson-Rothenberg Foundation, so you cannot apply to both, and a grant from either makes you ineligible to reapply for two years.

The angle
This fund is organised by service type rather than by cost type, so an application built around “our website needs replacing” has nothing to attach itself to. Anchor it to one of the listed activity areas instead. If your website is how families find your respite scheme, how people reach your community support, or how your day centre publishes its programme, then the site is running costs for an activity the Fund already backs. Lead with the service, and let the digital work sit inside it as delivery cost.

Worth knowing
The definition of learning disability is narrow and strictly applied. The Fund does not give grants for work on mental illness, dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism or ADHD where these are not accompanied by learning disabilities, and physical disabilities are excluded unless accompanied by significant learning disabilities. Hospices, advocacy projects, Conductive Education, arts and theatre projects, and swimming or hydrotherapy pools are also outside policy. After a successful grant you cannot reapply for two years, or one year after an unsuccessful one.

Application timetable
Small grant appeals below £9,000 can be submitted at any time and are usually considered monthly. General programme deadlines feed the trustee meetings held in March, June and November. The next general deadline is 31 August 2026 for the November meeting, though secondary sources quote both 1 and 31 August, so confirm the exact date on the Fund’s general programme page before this goes live.