General Questions
The actual ratio of successful to unsuccessful applications changes regularly. We receive many more funding requests than we can support and, like most grant-making organisations, have to turn down a considerable number of the applications we consider.
The size of each grant is decided by the Trustees and usually ranges from £5,000 and £20,000 a year for up to 3 years (most grants are awarded at between £10,000 and £15,000 a year).
We don’t ask you to request a particular amount or term when completing the application form. However, it is the Trust’s preference to offer multi-year grants and we tend to do this wherever possible.
We prefer to provide unrestricted funding to small specialist organisations whose work falls within our specific focus areas. We usually fund work being carried out by established organisations and would want to see strong evidence-based proposals for any new approaches or ways of working.
We prefer to give unrestricted funding to small specialist organisations whose work fits within our focus areas. However we may award a restricted grant for a project to an organisation whose overall work is broader than our focus areas. You would need to demonstrate that your charity has expertise in our areas of interest, and explain why it is well placed to deliver the proposed project.
The Bromley Trust is accredited with the Living Wage Foundation as a Living Wage Funder. We aim to promote the Real Living Wage and the benefits of the scheme amongst our applicants and grantees, as well as to other Funders and partners. We understand that many of the charities we support may not currently be able to pay all of their staff the National or London Living Wage. This does not mean that you cannot receive a grant from the Trust – we do not stipulate in our grant conditions that you must be a Living Wage Employer. We usually provide unrestricted funding, but where we are funding a specific post we encourage you to cost and pay this at at least the Living Wage rate. We will discuss your situation with you during our grant assessment and monitoring stages.
Yes, you can view a PDF of the questions here although please make sure you submit any application via our online form and complete the eligibility quiz to ensure you are eligible before you start drafting your answers. Bromley Trust Sample Application Form 2020
Process Questions
All applications need to made via the online application form, which you can access a link to after successfully completing our eligibility quiz on the Apply for Funding page. Please email us if you have any difficulties with the form.
All applications need to be made via our online application form. Please email us if you are having any difficulties with the form.
There are no deadlines – applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Our assessment process is thorough and it can take six to nine months for a successful grant to be awarded, although most unsuccessful applicants are informed much sooner than this.
You will receive an automated email acknowledging receipt of your online application. After this you should not expect to hear from us again until we let you know whether or not your application has been short-listed for a visit. Please feel free to get in touch with us for an update if you haven’t heard anything within eight weeks. As we are a very small team things can sometimes be delayed by annual leave or if we receive a particularly high volume of applications or enquiries.
Due to limited resources we are only able to meet with applicants who have been short-listed or with our current grantees.
No, we are unable to comment on draft applications ahead of them being submitted but are happy to answer any specific questions you have by email.
Unfortunately we do not have the resources to provide feedback to organisations that are not short-listed. However, we will provide feedback to those applicants that reached the final stage of the assessment process but were unsuccessful.
Our Director (sometimes accompanied by our Grants Officer or a Trustee) will usually meet with all short-listed applicants to discuss the application in more detail. This often involves a visit to your office or the site where you deliver services.
Eligibility Questions
For details of our exclusions please look at the ‘Our criteria’ page of the website.
You should allow two years from being notified of an unsuccessful outcome before re-applying. Please also check our website to ensure that your organisation still meets our eligibility criteria at the time of re-applying.
We accept applications from across the UK. We expect the majority of the work funded will place within the UK, although we will consider organisations who also undertake some overseas work.
No, we don’t have any grant-making schemes for individuals and unfortunately don’t have the resources to reply to any such funding requests.
We can only usually accept applications from UK registered charities. If you are an exempt charity such as a University and are doing a piece of work which provides a strong fit with one of our focus areas (and is not academic research) then you are welcome to get in touch with us to discuss this further. However, trustees very rarely agree to accept an application from any organisation other than a UK registered charity. We are not able to accept any applications from religious institutions.
We do not accept applications from charities which are newly established and have less than a year’s accounts. If your organisation is a newly established charity but used to exist as a project within another organisation or as a different entity such as a Community Interest Company (CIC) then you are welcome to send us an email to double-check your eligibility.
We usually only fund organisations with an annual turnover above £100k. If there is an exceptional reason for your turnover being outside of this criteria and you would like to double-check your eligibility then please contact us.
We prefer to give unrestricted funding to small specialist organisations with an annual turnover of under £1.5m. However we may award a restricted project grant to a larger organisation if you can demonstrate the need for this funding and explain why you are best well placed to deliver the proposed project.
We usually only accept applications from charities that have unrestricted reserves totaling between one month’s and one year’s worth of expenditure. If there is an exceptional reason for your current level of reserves being outside of this criteria and you would like to double-check your eligibility then please contact us.
We do not fund capital projects or general appeals. However, if you have read the information on this site and think your fundraising project is eligible then do send us an email to let us know a bit more.