The Dulverton Trust

A serious trust for charities that have outgrown small grants. Dulverton states that it funds a wide range of activities and core costs, and its recent grant-making backs that up: in 2024/25 it awarded £3.6m across 50 grants, including a record 20 core unrestricted grants, several multi-year. Core and unrestricted funding is the website route, and this trust is moving towards more of it, not less.

• What they fund: Project and core costs across its categories: Youth Opportunities (its largest, for work with under-25s facing disadvantage), General Welfare, Conservation, and Heritage craft skills. Apply for core costs on the strength of your work and spend where the need is greatest.
• Typical grants: Around £30,000 to £40,000 a year, with multi-year awards made regularly.
• Who can apply: UK charities and CIOs registered with the Charity Commission or OSCR, with an annual income between £200,000 and £10 million, though preference goes to charities with income of £5 million or below, and the sweet spot is medium-sized charities with income between £200,000 and £3 million.
• The angle: Dulverton says openly that the character of a charity matters as much as whether it delivers work in the priority areas. It wants organisations with national reach, normally operating from more than one location in more than one region, that are agile and independent, meaning not reliant on a substantial proportion of income from government or local authority contracts. Write about what kind of organisation you are, not just what you do.
• Worth knowing: Two hard exclusions: work in Greater London and Northern Ireland is not funded. Start with the eligibility quiz on the Trust’s site, which unlocks the Expression of Interest form; postal and email appeals aren’t accepted. Trustees meet three times a year, so allow three to six months for a decision. Competition is stiff and the Trust says it receives far more applications than it can fund, so treat this as a considered approach rather than a quick punt.