Discovery Grants of up to £5,000 are available to fund an activity which supports one or more of our three priority themes:
- Explorer – improving knowledge and insight
Examples include a series of Money Management workshops to help people understand how to budget and identify the affordable credit choices available to them. A Freedom Training course giving abused women knowledge of how to regain control over their lives.
- Transformer – developing skills and experience
Examples include work-based training and mentors to help socially isolated people develop skills to get back into work. Sign language training for parents with hearing impaired children. Or teaching young people with autism vocational skills.
- Changemaker – innovative solutions to social challenges
Examples include a new social networking program for visually impaired young people which uses specially developed braille laptops to access the internet. An inclusive cycling social enterprise which adapts bicycles to enable people with disabilities to enjoy the outdoors.
Grants must directly benefit disadvantaged people in the UK and must be for something that is wholly charitable. Funding is available to cover part time salaries, equipment or materials but is for one year and must deliver a local project, not a national initiative. We aim to fund a complete item rather than simply make a contribution to an appeal.
The application process is designed to be quick and simple to use and nominations can be made by organisations as well as Santander customers and staff. All you need to do is complete a Discovery Grant nomination form which is available in all Santander branches and post it in the nomination postbox.
Please note, we only need the information on the form, please do not send supporting material or annual reports. This is not a voting system so only one nomination is required. There are no closing dates and grants are made every month.
Successful organisations will be notified by e-mail within a month of submitting a nomination. If you have not heard from us within that time then you have been unsuccessful but you are welcome to apply again at any time. Because of the large number of nominations received it is not possible to notify unsuccessful applicants.
Discovery Grants are not awarded on the volume of nominations we receive. We ask for just one nomination to be submitted as any duplicates are removed.
We fund a very wide range of charities for all sorts of activities. The nominations most likely to be successful are those that ask us to fund a specific item or cost rather than for a general contribution to a much larger fundraising target. It is also important to explain how the grant will specifically help disadvantaged people. (Any group of people who cannot participate fully in society. There is no exhaustive list but a few examples would be people on restricted income, who are rurally isolated or disabled people. It will include people anywhere in the UK, not just in areas of high deprivation, who are excluded or who face barriers to taking part in day-to-day activities.)
We want to make the process really simple in order to help small charities to access funding. The form has space for only the essential information that we need to make a decision. You should be able to answer each of the three questions with a single sentence. Please do not send any other documents to us.
We operate a rolling grants programme. You can make a nomation at any time throughout the year.
There is about a one in three chance of being awarded a grant with our current application volumes. You can make a nomination again at any time.
We aim to help as many organisations as possible so we do not not make ongoing or annual grants. You will need to wait a year before before applying again. If you receive a grant anytime in 2016 then you will need to wait until January 2018 before you can nominate the charity again.
Please e-mail [email protected] for any questions not covered here.
If you do not have access to e-mail please write to us at: The Discovery Foundation, Santander, 201 Grafton Gate East, Milton Keynes, MK9 1AN
If you do not have a Santander branch near to you, you can e–mail a nomination form to us. Click here to download the form.
