Early Years 

Through our Early Years priority, we support charities working with children aged 0-5 who are living in the most disadvantaged circumstances, with a focus on those experiencing, or at risk of, poverty and neglect. Parents or carers are included as long as they are being supported in that role for these children.

We are looking to fund services that provide social and learning opportunities for children at this critical stage of their development, urgent practical support such as baby banks, as well as targeted interventions for caregivers providing these have demonstrable outcomes for children.

We are interested in funding projects that work towards the following outcomes:

• Help meet a child’s basic needs as part of a wider programme of support and early interventions
• Improve children’s physical health through access to healthcare, good nutrition, regular check-ups, and immunisations.
• Increase the likelihood of children reaching key developmental milestones.
• Strengthen families’ understanding of their child’s needs and build confidence in parenting to better support their development.
• Encourage families’ positive engagement with wider services
• Improving access to targeted support for specific challenges such as mental health and domestic abuse.
• Support children to make confident, successful transitions into primary school.

Supporting nurseries and pre-schools

We welcome applications from early years educational settings that meet our eligibility criteria if they are actively working with children within our Early Years priority group. We will not consider applications for routine delivery of activities to non-priority groups.

Grant Programmes 

SMALL GRANT 

These grants are for smaller charities whose annual income is between £25,000 and £500,000. 

Small grants are unrestricted and do not have to be used on a specific purpose, although we do ask grant recipients to report on how they used the funding. 

Small grants range from £1,000 – £5,000 per year, for up to three years. 

The total amount of the grant requested must not exceed 20 per cent of the total income of the charity, averaged over the past two years. 

LARGE GRANT 

These grants are for larger charities whose annual income is between £500,000 and £5m. 

Large grants are restricted for specific projects with defined goals and budgets, and may be spent on, for example, salaries, equipment, training, monitoring and administration. 

Large grants usually range from £10,000 to £60,000 in total spread over one to three years. The Freemasons’ Charity has a preference for multiyear funding (for example, £20,000 per year for three years or £30,000 per year for two years). We will consider one year grants only in exceptional circumstances such as for pilot projects.