HDH Wills 1965 Charitable Trust

HDH Wills 1965 Charitable Trust is a small-grants funder, with most awards in the few-hundred to £2,000 range and the occasional grant up to £5,000, so think modest site or a contribution towards a larger build rather than a full bespoke project.

It supports two kinds of charity. There’s a general fund for small charities, where the test is simply that the charity is small enough, or the project modest enough, for the grant to make a meaningful difference. And there’s a dedicated strand for wildlife and environmental conservation, particularly in rural areas, which is where a good share of its grant-making goes. You’ll need to be a registered charity in England, Scotland or Wales (or exempt or excepted), and you can’t have had a grant from the Trust in the previous 24 months.

There’s no deadline; the committee meets every other month. Applications can be made online, by post or by email, and the online form has to be completed in one sitting, so have your project description, budget and latest accounts ready before you start.

Two setup notes: you’ve no Environment or Conservation cause tag, and given HDH Wills tilts heavily that way (and you’ll hit more funders like it), that’s probably the one gap worth filling rather than leaning only on Animals & Wildlife. The general-fund strand could also carry an Unrestricted or Community tag so it surfaces for non-environmental charities. And the rolling, no-deadline status means it can sit as permanently “Open” without the windowed-recurrence handling CPF needs.