The UK Portfolio tests and grows bold ideas that put people in the lead to address long-term social issues and to improve the quality of life across the UK and internationally. This is achieved in three ways.
Bringing people together
We support communities to be part of and celebrate events of UK-wide significance, we fund activities that:
- support local projects to improve the quality of life for people and communities
- amplify the voices of people and communities to help create stronger connections between communities.
Growing great ideas
We support the growth or adaptation of great ideas across the UK by:
- supporting collective/ joint responses to tackling important social issues from the perspective of those most impacted by them
- supporting those most likely to face disadvantage and increasing their opportunities.
Exploring new approaches
We develop and test ways of building a stronger civil society by:
- testing new approaches to grant-making and non-financial support
- testing new solutions to addressing long-term or emerging social issues, particularly where people with first-hand experience of these issues are at the heart of creating the solutions.
Is my project suitable for funding?
The UK Portfolio supports projects that have UK-wide significance in terms of interest, impact or influence. We offer three different types of funding: small grants to develop ideas, long-term funding, and collaborative/partnership project funding. To be eligible, projects should be active in two or more of the UK’s constituent countries (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland)
We are most interested in projects that have one or more of the following characteristics.
- Are led or directed by those with lived experience of the social issue being addressed.
- Tackle root causes, not just the symptoms of the ‘problem’. They identify structural barriers and long-term failures and attempt to change systems that are failing to prevent people from experiencing problems.
- Are informed by diverse perspectives and multiple stakeholders, to ensure that the solutions created can achieve outcomes for all.
- Develop collaboration and collective responses between organisations.
- Focus on continuous experimentation, learning and adaptation.
- Early action – addressing the issue at the earliest possible stage.
You will need to be a legally constituted organisation or partnership. We expect most funding to go to either voluntary sector organisations or voluntary sector led partnerships of voluntary, public or private sector organisations.
We will not make awards to:
- individuals and sole traders
- organisations based outside the UK
- non-departmental public bodies
- branches where you don’t control how you’re run and how your money is spent
- applications made by one organisation on behalf of another
- organisations operating mainly for private benefit.