Grant funding criteria

• UK charity registered with the relevant charity regulator
• community interest company (CIC)
• charitable incorporated organisation (CIO)
• community benefit society
• voluntary or community organisation
• not-for-profit company limited by guarantee (with a not-for-profit ‘asset lock’ clause)
• school (if your project is not linked to the national curriculum)
• statutory body (including local authorities, town, parish and community council)

• Monday 4 September 2023: applications open to organisations in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, North East England and North West England. Applicants are requested to submit a short expression of interest form before being invited to complete a full application.
• Monday 16 October 2023: deadline for submitting an expression of interest form.
• Friday 27 October 2023: deadline for submitting a full application.
• November 2023: we’ll shortlist from the full applications. You might be asked to provide additional information to supplement your application. This will include due diligence checks and further details about your approach to safeguarding. An assessor from the Foundation may visit shortlisted applicants.
• December 2023: our board of trustees makes final decisions and we’ll inform applicants of the outcome
• January 2024: we’ll publicly announce the successful organisations.

The following is a list of eligible requests for funding. 

• Work that is currently underway and will continue into the grant funding period
• Running costs, including overheads and energy costs.
• Staff costs.
• Equipment necessary to deliver the work you’re requesting support for.
• Training costs for staff, volunteers and children and young people.
• Venue hire.
• Travel costs.
• Other costs associated with removing barriers to access for children and young people.
• Volunteer expenses.
• Budget for young people-led project development.
• Small scale capital costs.

This isn’t a full list of costs that are eligible for funding, so if you’re not sure if your application will be covered, please contact Matt Little.

We won’t consider applications supporting:

• Activity with children and young people not experiencing inequality.
• Activity that benefits children and young people outside of the UK.
• Activity that isn’t led by the views and needs of children and young people.
• Grants to individuals.
• Grants for large scale capital funding, including building and renovations work.
• Work that takes place or is delivered by fee-paying schools.
• Work that is primarily the responsibility of statutory authorities.
• Promotion of religion or ideology or places of worship.
• Work that has already taken place.

We can fund ongoing work that meets our funding criteria. Applicants can also submit new projects for consideration.

In this round of grant funding we are accepting applications from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, North East England and North West England.

North East England includes Tees Valley, Durham, Northumberland, and Tyne and Wear.

North West England includes Cumbria, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Merseyside.

We have prioritised certain regions in the funding round in order to focus our resources on areas with high levels of need. These regions have been chosen based on data including the level of deprivation and presence of existing charity funding. We have limited resources and want to avoid a large number of organisations investing their time and staff in applying for a limited number of grants.

We’re defining young people as anyone aged up to 25 years old.

We’re keeping an open view on the definition of inequality and will work with applicants to better understand the children and young people they work with.

All applicants are asked to clearly define the inequality the children and young people they support are facing.

Disadvantage or inequality could include, but is not limited to, children and young people:

• Experiencing poverty of any form.
• Living in an disadvantaged area.
• With low educational attainment.
• On free school meals.
• Who are disabled and/or have specific/additional needs.
• From racially minoritised communities.
• From the LGBTQIA+ community.
• Experiencing poor mental health.
• Experiencing homelessness or unstable housing situations.

For this funding round, grants are restricted to organisations based and operating in the eligible regions.

No. Each organisation is limited to one application per funding round.

Yes, we encourage partnership applications from organisations with complementary skill sets. You can apply to deliver work as a partnership with two or more partners, but the application needs to come from one lead partner who will manage the funding and contractual relationship with the Energy Saving Trust Foundation.

We’ll develop reporting requirements with each grant partner to make sure a proportional and youth-led process that lets young people tell their own stories.

Wherever possible we will aim to make use of any existing reporting already being produced by grant partners for other donors. Updates will be required on a six-monthly basis and annual reports will be required to release grant payment instalments.

We accept applications for co-funding or contributions to a project with multiple funders. Please indicate this on the application form.

We expect you to have a safeguarding policy or to be able to describe your safeguarding procedure.

You’ll be asked for more information about your approach to safeguarding, and this might include a conversation with your designated safeguarding officer.

Grant applications are reviewed by Foundation staff and experienced reviewers. Final decisions are made by the Foundation board of trustees.

If you have any questions about the application process or accessibility in completing the application form, please contact  Matt Little, our interim head of foundation.