Postcode Society Trust provide unrestricted funding for charities in the South of England. Taking on feedback from good causes and sector research, we have decided to expand our unrestricted funding to be the default method of funding so we can best meet to needs of the organisations we support. Charities can apply for up to £25,000, and being unrestricted means that funding doesn't need to be tied to a specific project or activity. Rather than applying for either unrestricted funding or project funding, good causes now apply in the one form for unrestricted funding.  

Organisations with an annual income of under £1,000,000 can apply for funding from Postcode Society Trust. This allows us to concentrate our support on small charities and grassroots initiatives. By doing so, we aim to amplify the impact of our grant funding, enabling community-driven change and empowering smaller organisations that often face greater resource challenges. In the event of an oversubscription of strong applications, we look to prioritise funding to organisations with an annual income of under £250,000.

Our funding themes relate to areas of impact that we are looking to target. These are: 

• Enabling participation in physical activity 
• Enabling participation in the arts 
• Preventing or reducing the impact of poverty 
• Supporting marginalised groups and tackling inequality 
• Improving biodiversity and responding to the climate emergency 
• Improving green spaces and increasing access to the outdoors 
• Providing support to improve mental health 

It is important to choose the funding theme most relevant to your organisation, as only one theme can be selected for an application. 

We do not have a set number of organisations per theme, and base funding decisions on a wide range of factors.

Funding from the trust cannot be spent on any activity included in our ‘we do not fund’ list. If your charitable objectives only include activities we do not fund e.g. the promotion of religion or medical research, the application will be made ineligible. However, if you have additional objectives that focus on other activities alongside what we are not able to fund, you would still be eligible for funding.

At present Postcode Society Trust does not offer multi-year funding through our grants programme. We understand the benefits multi-year funding can bring to charities and good causes and hope to offer this in the future.

We welcome applications aligning with our seven funding themes. However, funding rounds are often oversubscribed meaning it is not always possible to fund all strong applications. If you are unsure whether it is worth applying for funding, feel free to reach out to us for a more specific answer.

Yes, however, please be aware that future applications must be made at least 12 months after the date your last received a funding award from us. You need to have also returned your funding review form to us at the end of the previous funding period. 

An organisation can apply for any of the trust areas they are based in, however, we only accept one application from an organisation per funding round. This means an organisation may only apply to one of our trusts within any one funding round.  

You can search for which Trust to apply to here.

Enter the postcode where your activities will take place to find the correct trust for your area. 

To be eligible for funding, your organisation must have been operating for at least 1 year and have signed accounts you are able to provide on submission. 

Please note, if your organisation has changed type (eg from a CIC to a Registered Charity) the new entity must have been operating for a minimum of 12 months and be able to produce Accounts for this organisation type.

If you are a registered charity who have become incorporated in the last year, this would be okay. However, this would be based upon whether you can provide documentation from Charities Commission confirming this change. If you are unsure about whether you would be eligible, please reach out to the team. 

If you are looking to apply to Postcode Society Trust for funding, please read through our funding guide and FAQs. If you still have questions after this about our application process, you are welcome to contact the trust at info@postcodesocietytrust.org.uk. While we don't generally provide 1-on-1 support to applicants before they submit an application, we aim to provide an accessible application process and are happy to help organisations who require additional support.

Trustees are selected through a robust recruitment process, based on their knowledge, skills and experience of governance, grant making, charities and the voluntary sector. Details of our trustees can be found here.

Our terminology is taken from the DEI Data Standard published by Funders Collaborative Hub which looks to create a national framework for funders to identify and address structural inequalities across the country. More information about this framework can be found here. Under this framework, LGBT+ people reflects "People with gender, sex and relationship diversity including but not limited to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Agender people".

We will have 3 funding rounds in 2025, each open for seven days. The funding round dates for 2025 are: 

• Round 1: 24th February 9am to 3rd March 12 noon
• Round 2: 26th May 9am to 2nd June 12 noon
• Round 3: To be confirmed at a later date in 2025.

Our funding window will be open for the whole period stated on our funding guide (7 days).

A character count is the total number spaces that can used in an application form. The character count on our forms includes letters, numbers, punctuation and spaces. The form will feature a real-time character count, providing you with an ongoing tally of remaining characters.

Postcode Society Trust are a real Living Wage funder and fair pay is an important aspect of our equity, diversity and inclusion commitments. Though Real Living Wage accreditation is not a requirement for funding, we encourage all organisations employing staff with our funding to pay the Real Living Wage or above. If your organisation does not pay at this rate, we will ask about this as we work to understand the needs and challenges the groups we support.

Once you submit an application to us, you will receive confirmation via email that this has been received. Please make sure you check junk and spam folders. If you do not receive email confirmation, please contact us at info@postcodesocietytrust.org.uk.

Due to the volume of applications that we receive, we are unable to review external links or extra documents.

The oldest annual accounts we are able to accept are for year ending May 2023. Please submit your signed accounts with your application, as it will be ineligible otherwise. 

Your organisation will receive a decision within four weeks of the application deadline. You can find the expected decision date for each round below: 

• Round 1: 31st March
• Round 2: 30th June
• Round 3: To be confirmed at a later date in 2025

19% of applications received by the Postcode Society Trust were successful in 2024. Please note, this is not guaranteed to be the same in 2025.

You will not normally be contacted during the decision-making process, however our assessment team and due diligence partners may contact you if we have further questions about your governing and/or financial documents you have submitted as part of your application.

Referees will be contacted if we require any further information about your organisation between two and four weeks following the application submission deadline. 

Successful applicants will be paid approximately eight weeks after the funding application deadline. Release of funds is dependent on all Funding Agreement paperwork being submitted on time and with the required detail and supporting documents. You can find the expected payment date for each round below:

• Round 1: 31st April
• Round 2: 31st July
• Round 3: To be confirmed at a later date in 2025

If you are successful in your application, we will send you a Funding Agreement to complete and sign that confirms the funding offer. Once you complete and return the Agreement to us, you will receive a second email asking you to verify your signature. Please ensure that this is completed and check any junk and spam folders in case your confirmation has gone into one of these. 

It is important that the bank account name you type into your Funding Agreement is worded and spelt exactly the same as your bank statement and paying in slip, so please take special care completing the Agreement.  

If you are having difficulties with your Funding Agreement, please contact the trust helpdesk at info@postcodesocietytrust.org.uk or phone 0131 322 9430.

For more information on acknowledging an award from Postcode Society Trust, please see our Communications Toolkit available here.

Postcode Society Trust understands that circumstances may arise which could impact the deadline. If you require an extension on your deadline, please contact us via email at info@postcodesocietytrust.org.uk.

An organisation that has received funding from us may apply for funding again 12 months from the date their last award was paid into their bank account. This requires they meet the eligibility criteria for when they reapply, and they have returned their Funding Review form at the end of their previous funding period.

We appreciate the invitation to your event. Due to the size of our staff team we are not able to accept all invitations but please let us know and we will see if a Trust representative can come along. 

Organisations can apply to Postcode Society Trust twice per year. We have three funding rounds in the year for the trust. Our round dates for 2025 are: 

Round 1: 24th February 9am to 3rd March 12 noon

Round 2: 26th May 9am to 2nd June 12 noon

Round 3: To be confirmed at a later date in 2025

Applicants will receive feedback on areas where they can strengthen their application. However, it’s important to note that taking on feedback doesn't guarantee success in future applications. Some very strong applications are still unfortunately unsuccessful to the high volume of applications we receive.

We are often oversubscribed with high quality applications, meaning that you may be unsuccessful even if your application was strong. We appreciate this may be frustrating. How we prioritise applications when oversubscribed is explained on our funding guide.

We appreciate that it can be disappointing to receive the news that your application was unsuccessful. If you have a question that you feel was not answered by the FAQs, you can contact us via email at info@postcodesocietytrust.org.uk.

All applications are initially assessed by our staff team. Applications then go through our due diligence assessment which is mainly carried out by our due diligence partner. Once this has been completed, applications are reviewed by a trustee funding panel who then approve which organisations will receive funding. All funding decisions are final.