We want to give back to the communities that we serve. The Arnold Clark Community Fund is here to help registered UK charities and community groups close to our branches. We believe that by caring for these communities today, we can help them create a better future for generations to come. The Arnold Clark Community Fund is only accepting applications from registered charities and community groups that are within a 50-mile radius of an Arnold Clark branch.
The amount of funding you receive will depend on the strand of funding you apply for, If you apply for our Cost-of-Living Support, you can apply for up to £2,500 per application and for Community Support, you can apply for up to £1,000.
Deadline: Funding will continue on a rolling monthly basis. However, we’d recommend you apply as early as you can once the fund is open, as applications could be paused due to high demand.
Our funding categories:
Community
Education
Health
Social Welfare
We award three levels of grants:
Large – £25,000 and above
Medium – Up to £20,000
Small – £5,000 and under
What we fund: Capital projects.
Project costs between £10,000 and £5 million.
Charities with an annual income of under £10 million.
Our capital grants are one off, single payments.
We do not fully fund projects. Our grants are offered as a contribution to overall project costs.
Trustees decide on the amount to be pledged. We do not ask you to specify an amount.
We fund around 50% of all applications received.
Deadline: We hold three Trustees’ meetings a year in March, July and November.
The Trustees ONLY make grants to charities registered at the Charity Commission.
We will consider applications for one-off grants up to £10,000, but because of the high demand, most grants are currently £5,000 or less. Exceptionally, when funds permit, grants of as much as £60,000 are made, payable over several years.
The Trustees are keen to support horticultural training through bursaries and apprenticeships. Applications should be made by the sponsoring institution: individuals may not apply.
Grants are not offered for covering salary commitments (except for horticultural traineeships/ apprenticeships), nor for expenditure already incurred. In general, the trustees only consider applications up to £10,000. Exceptionally, larger grants may be made. The Foundation’s resources are modest: preference is given to helping smaller charities, where a grant can have more significant impact.
The Foundation funds both capital and revenue projects. We do not fund projects which have already been completed. We are unlikely to fund newly established organisations which do not yet have a track record, or have not yet produced accounts.
Deadline: Rolling
Grants up to £5,000 are available to help make modest improvements to rural community buildings in England such as boiler replacements, insulation, toilet upgrades and new kitchens.
Awards can be made to cover 20% of eligible project costs, up to a maximum amount of £5,000. The balance of funding for the works proposed must be in place or at least confirmed within 6 weeks of making an application to the small grants fund.
Project expenditure must take place before 31 March 2026.
The Alliance for Youth Organising will provide anchor grants of £40,000 a year for two years to UK-based organisations that are supporting youth organising.
The purpose of the funding is to support wider access to youth organising and strengthen the youth organising field.
Groups will also receive an additional £5,000 to support learning and to provide strategic insight to the Alliance to shape its future strategy. This means that the total grant awarded is £85,000 over two years.
The Fund will close to applications on 26 January 2026 and between seven and ten grants will be made by April 2026.
QHT gives advice, support, loans and grants to small charitable organisations to help them provide safe, decent and affordable homes.
They currently offer two separate restricted funding programmes:
?Best practice grants up to £6000 for early in the development of a project to enable projects to reach the highest possible standards.
?The Main Grants and Loans Programme to fund projects which create homes.
For capital projects generating income from rent, trustees will award interest-free loans up to £30,000 with a 5% administration fee payable at the end of the loan period.
The deadline for expressions of interest for the main grants and loans programme is 29 January 2026. The deadline for applications for best practice grants is 26 March 2026.
Apply for funding
The Engagement Grants Programme offers grants of up to £3,000 for organisations to conduct outreach and engagement projects that will connect archives with their communities in places across England and Wales.
Engagement grants are often responsive to cultural events and days of national importance.
The theme for the current application round is ‘Belonging’. The funder states: “By collecting records relating to our shared past and present, archives play an important role in helping people feel a sense of belonging.”
The closing date for applications is 19 January 2026.
About these grants – Archives sector
Awards for All: TNLCF offer funding from £300 to £20,000 and can support your project for up to two years. You can apply for funding to deliver a new or existing activity or to support your organisation to change and adapt to new and future challenges.
They can fund projects that’ll do at least one of these things:
bring people together to build strong relationships in and across communities
improve the places and spaces that matter to communities
help more people to reach their potential, by supporting them at the earliest possible stage
support people, communities and organisations facing more demands and challenges because of the cost-of-living crisis.
Reaching Communities England: With this funding, TNLCF want to help strengthen communities and improve lives across England. Their funding is available to all communities, but their priority is the places, people and communities that need it most.
When they say ‘community’, they mean people who live in the same area. Or people with similar interests or life experiences, even if they do not live in the same area.
They offer funding that starts at £20,001. Your project must help achieve one of these missions. Which are to support communities to:
come together through inclusive places, spaces and activities (either physical or virtual), especially for communities where people are least able to come together
help children and young people thrive by developing positive social and emotional skills
be healthier by addressing health inequalities and helping prevent poor health
be environmentally sustainable by engaging with climate issues, having a positive environmental impact, and improving access to quality natural spaces
Funding programmes | The National Lottery Community Fund.
Football Foundation grants are available to football clubs, schools, councils and local sports associations under the following categories:
Lionesses HERe to Play Fund
Goalposts
Catering units
Portable floodlights
Storage containers
Changing pavilions and clubhouses
3G pitch maintenance machinery and equipment
Fencing
3G pitches
Creation of new grass pitches
Small-sided facility improvements
Grass pitch improvement
Grass pitch drainage
Grass pitch maintenance machinery and equipment
Premier League defibrillator fund
Premier League stadium fund
Looking for funding | Football Foundation
Further useful funding resources can be found on the Rural Services Network website.
The Alliance for Youth Organising will provide anchor grants of £40,000 a year for two years to UK-based organisations that are supporting youth organising.
The purpose of the funding is to support wider access to youth organising and strengthen the youth organising field.
Groups will also receive an additional £5,000 to support learning and to provide strategic insight to the Alliance to shape its future strategy. This means that the total grant awarded is £85,000 over two years.
The purpose of the Alliance is to shift power and money to young people, so they can organise together to create change.
This funding is for organisations that already have a track record of supporting youth organising and with Alliance funding would have more impact.
It recognises the challenges facing organisations that support youth organising in securing long-term sustainable funding which allows them to focus on their core work – building youth power.
The Alliance also recognises that there are many ways that organisations can support young people to organise.
These include place-based support to organise to address local issues, national or regional leadership training programmes, support for networks of young organisers through mentoring and coaching, incubating youth organising initiatives and providing fiscal hosting.
Deadline: 26th January 2026
Our Vital for Berkshire fund aims to support charities, community groups and projects that work to tackle the most salient and pressing issues within Berkshire’s communities at any given time.
We invite applications from charities, community groups and projects that support vital needs in Berkshire, such as (but not limited to): physical and mental health, supporting young and vulnerable people or groups, combating isolation, tackling poverty and disadvantage, offering equal opportunities for all, and more.
Applications are also invited to enable groups to fund their essential resources in order to secure services for their beneficiaries in the current cost of living crisis.
Deadline: 29th January 2026
We want to fund organisations who work with young people (14–25) to drive change so that future generations of young people can thrive.
We believe that services, systems, structures, processes and practice can support young people to thrive. We want young people to have their voices heard, and to have agency and autonomy to drive changes and improvements which transform their transitions to adulthood.
This fund achieves this by:
Focusing on young people (14–25) who experience systemic inequity. For these young people, transitions are harder due to the way society, systems and structures operate. This often compounds the inequity they experience.
Driving change in systems, processes, structures and practice to create more equitable, inclusive, asset based environments and experiences for young people.
Tackling the root causes of inequity and injustice which creates barriers and challenges for young people as they transition to adulthood.
Centering young people voice, insight and power. Recognizing that many young people are marginalized or excluded, their experiences hidden or less well known and their voices often erased or ignored.
We provide funding:
- up to £50,000 per year for three years (max grant £150,000). We prefer to fund organisations at the maximum amount and term. We do not make grants of less than £30,000 per year
- to cover core operating costs (salaries, organisation and delivery costs)
- and to grow the impact of what you already do. We are not looking to fund new or untested approaches, projects or finite pieces of work.
Deadline: Rolling
We’re on a mission to build a brighter future. Our ambition is for the UK to become the most climate-ready large economy by 2030 and help people and communities feel positive about their financial futures. This is why our two key focus areas are:
Climate action—promoting healthy, thriving communities by preventing, preparing for and protecting against the impacts of climate change.
Financial wellbeing—helping people take control of their wellbeing by giving them the tools to be more financially independent and ready for anything.
And it’s about more than money – the Aviva Community Fund also gives causes access to volunteers, as well as tools and resources to help build their capabilities and achieve long-term sustainable success.
Building stronger, more resilient communities across the UK: that’s what we’re striving towards at Aviva, and it’s how we’ll continue to help small charities and community causes.
We know the causes that make the biggest impact are those that are given the opportunity to test innovative ideas and explore new sustainable strategies without fear of risk. That’s why the Aviva Community Fund backs the clever ideas that move communities forward and provides these amazing causes with vital support and resources.
Aviva will match each donation you receive up to £250. This means that if someone gives £5, we’ll double it to £10. If they give £250, we’ll match it, so the cause gets £500. Organisations can receive up to £50,000 in match funding and eligible causes can apply at any time.
Got an idea that will move your community forward? Organisations must be one of the following types of organisations:
Charity*
Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO);
Community Interest Company (CIC);
Company Limited by Guarantee (CLG); or
Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC);
Deadline: Rolling
The fund is now open and closes on 23rd February 2026.
Grants of up to £2000 will be available for projects and initiatives designed to empower local groups to take action, driving projects that champion fairness and equality, celebrate diversity and create places where everyone feels they truly belong
We will prioritise applications from:
- Smaller grassroots groups (income under £250,000)
- Groups that specialise in delivering services for people from marginalised groups such as ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ communities, religious groups, people with disabilities, women’s or men’s groups
- Those led by or incorporating lived experience
- Groups that operate within defined SNG communities where we have homes and whose work will directly benefit SNG communities
We will be focussing our ConnectED Communities Fund on the following priorities:-
Cohesive communities
- Activities which celebrate, encourage or raise awareness of diverse cultures/identities by bringing people together with an aim to build strong and cohesive communities and/or reduce prejudice or hate crimes and incidents.
- Bringing communities together for improved community cohesion and improving connections across generations.
- Creating safe spaces individuals feel comfortable and supported, free from discrimination, harassment, or judgment.
Social inclusion
- Investing in the development of more inclusive and age friendly communities.
- Encouraging and supporting young people from under represented groups to achieve their aspirations and transition from where they are to where they want to be.
- Providing mental health support or promoting mental and emotional health, including holistic activities like creative arts to build confidence and reduce stigma around mental health challenges.
- Activities which provide support for protected characteristic, minority, disadvantaged groups by reducing isolation, building resilience and independence, helping people stay safe, or helping people stay healthy
Raising awareness/education
- Workshops/networking events that amplify those from under represented backgrounds
- Support for events or speakers that raise awareness and deepen understanding of the multiple dimensions of EDI
- Events celebrating heritage through story telling, food and intergenerational activities
THINKING OF APPLYING?
This fund is an ACTIVE APPLY FUND – which means you must select the fund on Actionfunder and APPLY as your projects will not automatically match.
If you would like to discuss an application with us or have any questions please contact me or the grants team grants@sng.org.uk
With thanks to Rural Services Network, Slough CVS and Involve Bracknell & Wokingham for the information contained in this article.
Connecting Communities in Berkshire 