FAQs

The Clothworkers’ Foundation was set up by The Clothworkers’ Company (opens in a new tab) in 1977 and is a registered charity. The Clothworkers’ Company is the Corporate Trustee of The Foundation. The Trustee Board is made up of members of The Clothworkers’ Company and externally-sourced trustees.

The Foundation has its own endowment and investment portfolio, which is invested in stocks, property, and private equity, and is used to fund our charitable activities. We also receive additional donations annually from The Clothworkers’ Company to support our grantmaking.
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We publish our accounts to the Charity Commission each year, and we also publish an annual review to our website.

We accept applications to our Open Grants Programme, and you can find out if your organisation and project are eligible here.

Our Proactive Grants Programmes fund strategically, and so are not open to applications.

We fund charities registered, and operating in, the UK, CICs, and other UK not-for-profit organisations including special schools. We fund capital projects such as buildings, equipment and vehicles, and digital infrastructure.

The work of charities we fund must fit within one or more of our 10 programme areas.

In order to meet our eligibility criteria, you must be able to demonstrate that the work of your organisation fits within one or more of our 10 programme areas, and that at least 50% of service users benefiting from the capital project are from one or more of those groups. 

Our programme areas are:
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- Communities Experiencing Racial Inequalities
- Disabilities (including Mental Health & Visual Impairment)
- Domestic & Sexual Abuse
- Economic Disadvantage
- Homelessness
- LGBT+ Communities
- Older People Facing Disadvantage
- Prison & Rehabilitation
- Substance Misuse & Addiction
- Young People Facing Disadvantage

We consider a capital project/item to mean:

- Buildings: Purchase, construction, renovation or refurbishment.
- Fittings, Fixtures, and Equipment: This includes but is not limited to office equipment/furniture, sports/gym equipment, digital/audio visual equipment, garden equipment, specialist therapeutic     (excluding medical) equipment. It does not include equipment for one-off use, or which will be given to service users for personal use on a permanent basis (if the majority of your budget is made up of these sort of items, please contact us before submitting an application). 
- Vehicles: This includes (but is not exclusive to) minibuses, cars, caravans, people carriers, 4x4 and boats. We are unlikely to fund the total cost of a new vehicle or award funding to an     organisation that already owns a large number of vehicles. We do not provide grants towards vehicle leasing or to organisations whose core activity is community transport.
- Digital Infrastructure: This includes but is not limited to CRM software and websites (our Digital Infrastructure Guidance can be found on the Applying for a Grant page).

There are no application deadlines, which means you can submit an application at any time.

We ask that you do not request a specific amount in your application form. This is because our team will take into consideration a number of factors when deciding the size of grant to award. Our application form asks you to provide the full budget for the eligible costs of your project, and the balance you have left to raise. Generally speaking, the larger the project, the larger our grant is likely to be. For projects with a balance of more than £100,000, we aim to fund at least 10% of the balance. For smaller projects of £15,000 or less, we aim to fund all, or a significant amount, of the remaining balance.

The length of time for a decision depends on whether you are applying for a Small Grant of £15,000 or less, or a Large Grant of more than £15,000.

For Small Grants, we aim to make a decision within 12 weeks. Large Grants may take up to six months.

No, we do not make grants to cover retrospective costs, i.e. those that have already been paid.

We know many organisations do use AI tools to help with their work, and that’s fine. We want to understand your organisation's work, your project, and how lived experience features in your decisions and activities. Please make sure that you communicate these things honestly – that's what we’re most interested in, not perfect grammar or writing style.

In most cases, we do not fund the total cost of the project. You do not need to have other funding commitments in place before you apply. However, for Larger Projects in particular, we will ask what your plan is for raising the remaining funds.

You must demonstrate your not-for-profit status in the application form and attach your accounts. We fund the following types of charitable and not-for-profit organisations:

- UK charities registered with the Charity Commission including Community Interest Organisations (CIO)
- Community Interest Companies (limited by guarantee without share capital)
- ‘Exempt Charities’ (in which case we require details of your principal regulator and/or evidence of HMRC exemption), including Community Benefit Societies.
- Special Schools

We do not fund organisations that do not meet these requirements and a ‘constitution’ document alone is not a sufficient demonstration of eligibility.

Your organisation is not required to be a Living Wage Employer, and your answer to this question will not affect our decision. Our form asks a question about your Living Wage accreditation so that we can collect, aggregate, and anonymise this data to feed into wider research being conducted on the Living Wage in the charity sector.

We would ask, however, that you do consider whether the people who may be employed (or the employees of any organisations you contract) in relation to this funding are paid the Living Wage. We recommend asking any contractors that you might work with if they are an accredited Living Wage Employer or will be paying the real Living Wage to all staff on the project. You can find out more about the real Living Wage and accrediting as a Living Wage Employer here: https://www.livingwage.org.uk.

We understand that using a Living Wage accredited contractor may increase the overall project cost. By obtaining quotes from contractors paying the Living Wage at this stage (i.e. before we have awarded a grant), you can adjust your budget accordingly, and we will take this into account when assessing your application. We will not be able to take into account any increased costs due to Living Wage considerations after a grant is awarded.

If your application is successful, you can apply again five years after your grant award letter.

If your application is unsuccessful, you cannot reapply for the same project.

You can apply for a different project after six months.

You will always receive an automatic email when your application has been successfully submitted. It is automatically generated from our database and, because of this, can sometimes be redirected to your spam or junk folders.

Please check all folders for an email from NoReply@YourCause.com.

Once a grant offer has been made and accepted, we will process payment when your fundraising is complete. That may be straightaway, if our grant covers the full or remaining balance of your project. 

If you have further fundraising to do, we ask you to keep us updated on your progress until fundraising is complete.

Our Proactive Grants Programmes are strategic initiatives developed in line with The Foundation’s current mission, strategy, and values. These programmes are not open to applications. They are rooted in a relational approach to to grantmaking, prioritise multi-year unrestricted funding where possible, and frequently aim to support organisations at a strategic, rather than project, level.

We use our Annual Review, website and social media to share the work we do, including amplifying the voice of our partners, and publishing learning reports and reflections. If you have any questions about our Proactive Grants Programme, please get in touch using the form on the Contact Us page.

We hope you will find all the information you need on the website - and if there is something missing, please let us know. However, we are happy to answer queries from organisations which are not sure whether they should apply. Please bear in mind we are a small team, so we may not be able to respond immediately. Please use the form on the Contact Us page to get in touch, if you would like to speak with, or email, someone directly.

Unfortunately, we receive more applications than we can fund, and our decisions on applications are final. All unsuccessful applicants receive brief feedback via email. If you believe the feedback is wrong, or you would like additional details, please use the form on the Contact Us page. We are a small team, but we will do our best to get back to you as soon as possible.

If you have read all of our online information and you still have a specific question, please use the form on the Contact Us page to get in touch.