Community Grants UK 2026: Funding for Local Groups

Before you read on: Grantsights only offers US funding tools at the moment, so this guide sends you straight to UK funders and official pages. If you want us to build UK coverage, tell us you're in the UK.

Community Grants UK by the Numbers: 13 Community Foundations

Community foundations are local charities that pool money from donors, companies, councils and national programmes and hand it out as small grants in their area. Grantsights compared the grant records of 13 of them, covering parts of England plus the whole of Scotland and Wales.

Data: 360Giving data published by the 13 community foundations listed, under their open licences (mostly CC BY 4.0), retrieved October 17, 2026. "Middle 80%" runs from the 10th to the 90th percentile.

And here's how big those grants were:

The honest reading: 57% of community foundation grants were under £5,000, and only 6% were £25,000 or more. Community grants pay for a defibrillator, a summer programme, a new kitchen or a year's hall hire. They rarely pay for a building or a salary. If your project needs £60,000, a community foundation can be one piece of the money, not all of it.

Who Gets Community Grants: Charities, CICs and Unregistered Groups

Grantsights classified each recipient by the identifier in the published data. A charity number (from the Charity Commission, OSCR or the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland) counts as a registered charity. A Companies House number counts as a company, and a name that includes "CIC" or "community interest company" counts as a CIC.

The second row is the important one for new groups. The recipients with no charity or company number are mostly the kind of groups most funders won't touch: community councils, parent councils, sports clubs, church groups and village hall committees. Their median grant was smaller, at £2,082, but they got 4,123 grants in under three years from these 13 foundations alone. In Somerset and Greater Manchester they made up the largest single group: 42% of Somerset Community Foundation's grants and 44% of Forever Manchester's went to recipients with no charity or company number.

Real records show what that looks like. A case in point: Rimpton Village Hall, a community group in Somerset, appears in Somerset Community Foundation's data with a £20,000 community buildings grant in June 2025, with no charity number recorded. Hawick Community Council received £500 from Foundation Scotland in April 2025. Corra Foundation's Boost Fund data lists £3,000 for Cumnock Community Council in March 2025.

Scotland has a pattern of its own. Of Foundation Scotland's 4,055 grants since January 2024, 912 (22%) came from funds whose names refer to wind farms or other energy projects, such as community benefit funds paid by developers to nearby communities. Their median was £4,225. If you're near a wind farm in Scotland, find out who runs its community fund before you apply anywhere else.

Unincorporated Group, Charity or CIC: Which Structure Opens Which Doors

Your legal form matters more than your project for many funders. Here's how the main routes treat each one, from their own pages:

According to the Charity Commission's guide to choosing a charity structure (CC22a) (opens in a new tab), when a charity isn't a corporate body its trustees are personally liable for what it does, and it can't enter into some contracts in its own name. That's the trade-off of staying an unincorporated association: it's cheap and quick, but once you're signing leases, employing staff or taking larger grants, a CIO or charitable company is safer.

CICs suit groups that want to trade. The GOV.UK CIC guidance (opens in a new tab) says every CIC has a compulsory asset lock that can't be removed, and that a CIC must be limited by guarantee or by shares, a choice that can't be reversed after incorporation. The same guidance warns that funders tend to look more favourably on CICs limited by guarantee. If grants will be a big part of your income, that's a strong reason to choose guarantee. Our guide to grants for community interest companies covers the CIC side in full.

National Lottery Awards for All: The Main Route in Every Nation

According to the National Lottery Community Fund, each of its four Awards for All programmes offers £300 to £20,000, and each covers one nation only. England's programme funds projects for up to 2 years and decides within 16 weeks. The Awards for All England eligibility page (opens in a new tab) lists constituted voluntary or community organisations, constituted groups or clubs, CIOs, CICs, schools (only for projects that mainly benefit the wider community), statutory bodies including parish and town councils, and community benefit societies.

The practical requirements trip up new groups more than the project idea does:

• 2 unrelated people. You need at least 2 board or committee members who aren't related, married, partners or living at the same address. Companies need 2 unrelated directors.
• A bank account in the group's legal name. According to the National Lottery Community Fund, it needs a bank statement from the last 3 months showing your organisation's legal name, address, account number and sort code. A personal account won't do.
• A safeguarding policy if you work with children, young people or adults at risk.
• No bid writers. The Fund doesn't accept applications written by consultants or bid writers on your behalf.
• One grant at a time. England caps funding at £20,000 in any 12-month period, and you can't apply while an Awards for All grant is still running.

New groups shouldn't be put off by accounts. The England guidance says that if your organisation is less than 15 months old and has no yearly accounts yet, you can still apply. The Fund prioritises organisations with smaller incomes, and it says it usually funds around 1 in 3 England applications. Our National Lottery Awards for All guide compares the four nations in detail.

Community Foundations: The Local Route Most Groups Miss

According to UK Community Foundations, its network distributed more than £183 million through 38,000+ grants in 2024-25, with an average grant of £5,500. UKCF itself doesn't give grants to groups; you apply to your local foundation. Its find a foundation page (opens in a new tab) covers England by postcode and confirms that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are each served by one national foundation: Community Foundation Wales, Foundation Scotland and Community Foundation Northern Ireland.

Three things make community foundations different from a single trust:

1. They run many small funds at once. Each foundation manages dozens of funds for donors, companies and councils, each with its own rules and deadlines. Forever Manchester's data, for example, shows grants from an Auto Trader Community Fund and a Stagecoach Greater Manchester Fund.
2. They fund unregistered groups more often. As the table above shows, almost a quarter of their grants went to recipients with no charity or company number.
3. They know local need. A short call before you apply can save you writing to the wrong fund.

The downside is that community foundation money is mostly small and often tied to a donor's theme or a specific area, such as one town or the area around a wind farm. Read each fund's criteria rather than the foundation's general page.

Council and Government Community Funding, Nation by Nation

Public money for community groups is split by nation, and much of it is now run through councils.

According to Sport England, its Movement Fund invests more than £20 million of National Lottery and government money each year, takes applications with no deadline, and asks you to apply at least 12 weeks before you want to start. It may offer a grant or a crowdfunding pledge that matches half of what your community raises. The Welsh Government says its programme helps voluntary and community organisations refurbish well-used facilities such as community centres, grassroots sports facilities and libraries, and it announced an extra £5 million for the programme this year, subject to Senedd approval.

In Scotland, the Scottish Government's page says the Investing in Communities Fund isn't currently accepting applications and that future rounds will be announced when available. For now, Scottish groups will find more open money through Foundation Scotland, Corra and the Lottery. Our funding for charities in Scotland guide goes through the Scottish options.

Local councils are the hardest source to generalise. Some run small community chests or ward grants; others have cut them. Look on your council's website for "community grants" or "voluntary sector funding", and ask your local councillor, who often knows about funds that aren't well advertised.

What Community Grant Lists Don't Tell You

Most "community grants UK" lists name the same few national funders. Here's what they leave out:

• Your nation decides more than your cause. A list built around England's Awards for All, Reaching Communities or the Movement Fund doesn't help a group in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
• Constitution and bank account come first. A common mistake is spending weeks on an application, then failing on the 2-unrelated-people rule or a bank statement in a volunteer's name.
• Published data only shows funders that publish. These 13 community foundations publish to 360Giving; many councils and small trusts don't, and publishing lags. Foundation Scotland's latest record here is from September 2025 and Community Foundation in Wales's from March 2025.
• A missing charity number isn't proof of an unregistered group. Some of those 4,123 recipients will be schools, parish bodies or excepted charities whose number wasn't recorded.
• Medians aren't odds. None of the 13 foundations publishes a success rate in this data. The Lottery's "around 1 in 3" for England is the only one here.

A Step-by-Step Plan for a New Community Group

1. Write a simple constitution with your purpose, how committee members are chosen, and what happens to money if you close. Many funders, including Corra and Awards for All, check for this.
2. Recruit at least 2 unrelated committee members, ideally 3, since Corra's Boost Fund asks constituted groups for at least three board or committee members.
3. Open a bank account in the group's name and wait for a statement or welcome letter.
4. Start small and local. Contact your community foundation and check your council's grants page before national funders.
5. Apply to Awards for All in your nation once you're set up, at least 16 weeks ahead in England or 12 weeks ahead elsewhere.
6. Decide on registration as you grow. In England and Wales, once income is over £5,000 a year a charity usually has to register with the Charity Commission. If you're thinking of trading, compare a CIO with a CIC before you choose.

If your group is already a charity and wants larger trust grants, read our charity grants UK overview and the grants for small charities guide. Church-based community projects should also see grants for churches in the UK.

Sources Checked

• 360Giving data published by Foundation Scotland, Community Foundation North East, Quartet Community Foundation, Point North, Somerset Community Foundation, Essex Community Foundation, Leeds Community Foundation, Community Foundation for Surrey, Forever Manchester, Cambridgeshire Community Foundation, Devon Community Foundation, Community Foundation in Wales and Oxfordshire Community Foundation (mostly CC BY 4.0), retrieved October 17, 2026
• 360Giving data published by Corra Foundation (CC BY 4.0), retrieved October 17, 2026
• The National Lottery Community Fund: Awards for All England, who can apply (opens in a new tab), plus its who cannot apply, what we need to know and how to apply pages, and the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland equivalents, read October 17, 2026
• Charity Commission: Charity types, how to choose a structure (CC22a) (opens in a new tab), read October 17, 2026
• Charity Commission: How to register a charity (CC21b) (opens in a new tab), read October 17, 2026
• Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies: CIC guidance chapters (opens in a new tab), read October 17, 2026
• GOV.UK Find a grant (opens in a new tab), read October 17, 2026
• Sport England: Movement Fund (opens in a new tab), read October 17, 2026
• Welsh Government: Community Facilities Programme (opens in a new tab) and its £5m announcement, read October 17, 2026
• Scottish Government: Empowering Communities Programme (opens in a new tab), read October 17, 2026
• GOV.UK: Find your local council (opens in a new tab), read October 17, 2026
• UK Community Foundations homepage and find a foundation page, and Corra Foundation's Boost Fund page, read October 17, 2026