How we fund
- We invite a limited number of policy-focused organisations to become our strategic partners.
- We seek to build longer-term funding relationships and partnerships and provide opportunities for our strategic partners and others to share learning and practice.
This relational approach is described in more detail here:
Strategic partners
Since 2013, the Foundation has concentrated on supporting a small number of organisations – our strategic partners – for whom policy work is core to addressing poverty and inequity. We award unrestricted funding for up to three years at a time and partners are actively encouraged to re-apply if they continue their focus on poverty and inequity in the region. We currently have five strategic partners, Citizens’ Advice Newcastle, IPPR North, North East Child Poverty Commission, Tyne and Wear Citizens and Voluntary Organisations Network North East (VONNE), chosen because of their overarching interest in addressing issues of inequity, because they are skilled in policy thinking and development and because we believe their work contributes that of other policy workers and campaigners in the North East. We have a sustained relationship with them but we neither set their workplans for them nor make detailed demands of them.
Other grant-making
Recognising that the policy landscape in the region is constantly evolving, Trustees have twice (in 2022 and 2024) issued a time-limited invitation, to organisations active in the policy field, to apply for a smaller ‘Getting to Know You’ award.
Please note however, that we do not accept unsolicited applications at other times and do not have an open grants programme.
Trustees have also made a small contribution to the 2022 and 2025 Third Sector Trend studies. In 2022 this supported a specific focus on how charities are Shaping Social Change Through Campaigning and Influencing: