Funding Guidelines & FAQs
As a small charity the Trust focuses on small projects for charities, social enterprises and grassroots community organisations whose activities are based within the UK.
Projects are chosen in accordance to the needs set out in the latest funding window and how well they fit with the Trust’s funding guidelines, criteria and objectives.
The Trust operates funding windows each year to help us manage demand and make a fair assessment of the applications we receive. The Trust conducts three funding windows per year (January to February, May to June, and September to October). The subsequent months after each window is closed are to review the applications, inform applicants of the outcome, and make pledge payments.
The Naturesave Trust is wholly funded by the commercial activities of Naturesave Insurance and has been supporting environmental projects for nearly 30 years
1.Funding is available for projects submitted by any organisation whether they be charities, voluntary organisations or businesses. The Trust is unable to fund individuals.
2. Projects must be entirely based within the UK.
3. Grants are made to projects which specifically address the needs set out in the latest funding window and fall under the broad objective of promoting and implementing sustainable development.
4. Applications for funding must be forwarded with a completed funding application form, together with any further information that the applicant thinks inform the Trustees further and support their application.
5. Applications that cannot convey (to the best of their ability) what they are trying to achieve on the application form, have a lower chance of success.
6. The best applications are those that are succinct, concise and relevant.
7. Grants given may be subject to various criteria and funds are only released once these criteria have been met.
8. The organisation and/or project must have a website or social media presence.
9. The Naturesave Trust no longer provide grants for schools.
10. Any offer of funding is open from six months of the date of the offer letter and is subject to the conditions set out in the initial pledge email.
11. We offer grants up to £5,000.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you are a charity, community group, CIC, organisation, or business that is based in the UK and is working on a relevant project within the theme of the funding round, then you are very welcome to apply.
Yes.
It is completely up to you how you would prefer to apply for the grant, though it would probably be best to apply where it would have the most impact.
The Trust currently does not have a phone line but you are very welcome to email us at info@naturesavetrust.org with any queries. Please be aware that we receive a very high volume of enquiries and applications and there is one person working part time to field them.
Yes, you are absolutely welcome to apply again, even if you have previously been funded. There are no restrictions on applications.
If the parish council is not wholly reliant on government funds, then yes.
We prioritise small, grassroots and community-led organisations, often run by volunteers or with a small number of paid staff. While we don’t have a strict income limit, most of the groups we fund have an annual income of under £250,000, and many are much smaller than that.
If your organisation has a larger income but you’re working in a grassroots way led by your community, and with limited access to other funding, you’re still welcome to apply. Just bear in mind that we may prioritise smaller organisations with fewer resources.
We process a high volume of applications and the ones that tend to make the shortlist are concise and easy to explain, and have included a budget and clear community impact.
Yes you are welcome to apply. This is one way that we are able to continue funding education and schools.
We understand that many grassroots organisations receive some level of government funding, particularly for specific projects or through local authorities, and we don’t automatically exclude you on that basis.
However, due to our limited capacity, we prioritise applications from organisations that do not rely heavily on government funding. If your organisation receives more than 50% of the organisation’s income from government funding, your application is unlikely to be successful at this time.
We are only a small charity and we receive hundreds of applications for every round. Unfortunately as schools and government-funded organisations are chronically underfunded, we do not currently have the resources to process the overwhelming number of applications from them. We would particularly love to be able to help all of the schools who apply, but sadly we are not currently in a position to do so.
We make our payments through Charities Trust who carry out due diligence on our behalf. They are only able to make payments to business or charity accounts. If you are an individual with a relevant project and you would like to apply, you may want to partner with a business or charity so that payment can be made.
As part of our grant conditions, recipients are required to provide publicity and/or promotional acknowledgement of the Trust’s support. This is considered a supply for VAT purposes. Therefore, if your organisation is VAT-registered, you may be required to treat the grant as taxable income and account for VAT on it.
All grant amounts are deemed to be inclusive of any applicable VAT. If your organisation is VAT-registered and must account for VAT on the grant, you should ensure that the VAT element is covered within the total grant amount requested. We will not pay VAT in addition to the grant amount awarded.
If you are unsure of your VAT obligations, we recommend you seek professional advice or consult HMRC guidance on grants and VAT treatment.
We prefer if applicants are able to promote the work we do via social or website channels, but we appreciate that not every project is going to have the means for an online space. If you are able to issue a press release to your newsletter list or local news outlets in place of promoting the funding on your website and socials then you are welcome to apply.
We aim to let applicants know whether they have been shortlisted within a month after the application deadline. This can sometimes take longer depending on the volume of applications that need to be processed and reviewed. Shortlisted candidates will then hear back within 2-4 weeks whether they have been accepted, they will then be contacted by Charities Trust who will carry out their checks and make payment once these have finalised.
Unfortunately we are unable to provide feedback on individual applications as we receive hundreds for each funding window.
We make our payments through Charities Trust who carry our due diligence on our behalf and ensure that our payment system is rigorous and impartial. After applicants have been informed that they are successful, Charities Trust will contact them to request further information to enable checks. Once this information has been provided, Charities Trust will make payment. This payment will be made as one sum into your organisation’s bank account.
After the pledge email has been sent, it can take anything up to a month for projects to receive the funds. It may take longer depending on how quickly checks are able to be carried out.
We request that the conditions of the pledge are met within 6 months, that is to say that we receive a press release and photo of the project within that time frame. The grant is paid to the project once our third party payment system has carried out its checks. So in that respect, when the grant is spent it is up to you.
Our funding comes from the activities of Naturesave Insurance, the more business they do then the more funding we get. It is important to us that we promote the work of Naturesave Insurance so that we are able to fund as many projects as we can. In this respect, we ask that successful projects publish a press release and photo and share this with us so that we can share it with our audience. We also love a video testimonial if you’re feeling brave enough!
We receive anything between 200 – 1,000 applications for each funding window. We have a funding pot of around £25,000 – 30,000 for each window and we try to apply full funding to as many projects are we can, which is usually between 5 – 10 projects.
