Applying for funding

3.1 How do I apply for funding?

All details of our application process can be found here, along with our funding guidance.

Unless specified, there are no deadlines – we assess expressions of interest, and make funding decisions, on a rolling basis so you can apply when it suits you.

The smallest grant you can apply for is £30,000. In 2023, our median grant size was £180,000 over 3 years, and we made three grants of over £1m. If you are requesting multi-year funding, we encourage you to account for inflation and increase your annual amount accordingly. Visit the Office for National Statistics for information on the current rate of inflation.

The majority of our grants support organisations' core costs, or are unrestricted, and in most cases we only make one grant to an organisation at a time. If you have an idea for an additional grant that could contribute to our impact goals, speak to your funding manager.

For requests for both grant and social investment funding: if the funding is for the same project, please submit an Expression of Interest for social investment in the first instance. If you are seeking grant and social investment funding for different or unrelated projects, please submit separate Expressions of Interest.

If you're not successful, you can apply again without needing to wait. However, unless your expression of interest is very different, it's unlikely to get a different result, as we will already have looked at your organisation details and website to judge whether your work is a potential match for our aims.

We will give feedback to every organisation we ask to submit a full proposal. Feedback will not be given on expressions of interest, but we will track and use our team’s assessments to amend our guidance, answer frequently asked questions, and give more general application advice on our website and twitter.

3.2 Is my organisation eligible for funding from Esmée?

You can take our short quiz to see if you meet our minimum criteria for funding. You can also find our general exclusions in what we don't support.

3.3 What evaluation criteria do you use for Expressions of Interest?

After meeting our minimum eligibility criteria, Expressions of Interest are evaluated based on best fit to our impact goals. See also the main reasons for why we turn down applications.

3.4 How will you assess an organisation's annual turnover?

In the Expression of Interest form, we’ll ask for your most recent accounting year’s annual turnover. And if invited to submit a proposal, we will ask to see a copy of your latest accounts. See our funding guidance (under the proposal section) for more detail.

Please note that we are not considering applications from organisations with an annual turnover of less than £100,000. You can learn more about our reasons for this and what we are doing to support smaller and early stage organisations who do not meet our eligibility criteria, but may be a good partner for our strategy.

3.5 What is the success rate of applications?

Success rates for applications in 2023 (excluding those for follow-on grants and those we have proactively invited):

• 7% of eligible expressions of interest were invited to submit a proposal.
• 93% of proposals submitted went on to be awarded a grant.

The overall success rates for ALL applications was higher:

• 19% of expressions of interest were invited to submit a proposal.
• 96% of proposals submitted went on to be awarded a grant.

Learn more in our overview of grant funding.

3.6 What is the turnaround time for decisions after initial application?

• After submitting an Expression of Interest, we will let you know if we will take your application further within four weeks.
• After submitting a Proposal, we will let you know our decision within three months.

Altogether, the full process for a successful application - from submitting an Expression of Interest to being awarded a grant - can take up to 6 months. In general, requests for smaller grants can happen more quickly. See also the question on how we make decisions.

3.7 Can an organisation hold more than one grant?

Yes, but it is unusual. In general, we will accept more than one application for funding (usually, not more than two) from an organisation when:

• There is not any duplication in terms of the programme of work being covered and we aren't being asked to fund the same costs twice
• The organisation is acting as the lead in an application on behalf of a partnership, and the other application is for funding for that organisation in its own right and for its own needs

3.8 Can I submit more than one EOI to the Foundation at a time?

Yes, we will accept more than one application for funding (usually, not more than two) from the same organisation when:

• There is not any duplication in terms of the programme of work being covered and we aren't being asked to fund the same costs twice
• The organisation is acting as the lead in an application on behalf of a partnership, and the other application is for funding for that organisation in its own right and for its own needs.

3.9 Can I apply as part of a collaboration/partnership?

Yes, we encourage collaborative approaches across our aims. We can fund both existing or new collaborations.

One organisation will need to apply as the 'lead' - they will be treated as the grant-holding organisation in our system and hold responsibility for the progress of the work.

We'll need the collaboration partners to confirm their involvement. Not all partners have to be registered charities. You'll also nominate two contacts; one from the 'lead' organisation and one of the partners.

You can include anticipated costs of setting up and co-ordinating networks or partnerships in your application.

Please note: The 'lead' organisation will need to meet our minimum eligibility criteria. If you would like to discuss this further, get in touch by emailing communications@esmeefairbairn.org.uk.

3.10 Why do you turn down applications?

See why we turn down applications.

3.11 My application was unsuccessful - can I apply again?

Unfortunately, we receive far more applications than we are able to fund. We appreciate how challenging fundraising can be so whilst an organisation who has been turned down for funding can apply again, the new application should not be for the same work and costs. 

Please look at why we turn down applications before deciding to submit another application. You can also find useful links to guidance & directories for other sources of funding here.

3.12 Can I get help with an application? How can I ask a question about the process?

We don't normally offer calls before Expressions of Interest are submitted due to the limited capacity of the Team.

We hold pre-application Q&A webinars throughout the year. You can catch up previous webinars or see if we have one coming up.

If you're still not able to find the guidance or answers to questions you might have, please send your question in to: info@esmeefairbairn.org.uk.

3.13 What's your approach to reserves?

We consider an organisation’s reserves on a case-by-case basis. We recognise that organisations come in lots of different shapes and sizes, and that some organisations will have found it harder to raise unrestricted funds due to systemic inequity. When assessing applications, we want to understand the organisation’s approach to their reserves and what this means for the sustainability of their organisation. We’re also thinking about what’s the most effective use of our resources and where our support can add the most value. Two examples of what we might consider:

• If an organisation has relatively small or no reserves: what does that mean for their sustainability and if we were to support the organisation, how best could we support them.
• If an organisation has relatively high reserves: we would want to understand why they are seeking our support and what is the best use of our resources given the high demand for our funding.