Funding and grants opportunities in May 2025
Howard Lake | 6 May 2025 | News
The latest news and opportunities from grantmaking trusts, featuring support for arts and culture professionals in the UK, decarbonisation funding for charities and groups, funding for the mental health of young women, and a pay-it-forward pilot project that trusts charities to select which charities will also receive a grant.
Societe Generale seeks new UK charity partner
Banking and financial services company Societe Generale is seeking a new UK charity partner.
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The partnership will deliver financial support, employee engagement, and skills-based volunteering to the selected charity.
The company is looking for a charity that can “help us deliver our strategy of supporting people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds improve their employability prospects through accessing opportunities and developing key skills”.
Essential eligibility criteria include:
- A UK-based registered charity
- Strong focus on employability and/or social mobility
- Capacity to engage with our employees through volunteering and fundraising
- Clear impact measurement and reporting
Applications to be Societe Generale’s new UK charity partner close on Friday 20 June 2025.
SG UK Foundation’s Bright Futures Grants
There’s another Societe Generale funding opportunity. The SG UK Foundation is launching Bright Futures Grants, investing in organisations supporting confidence, aspirations, and mental health for marginalised people.
It is investing £1 million over three years to empower and equip people from marginalised groups to access education and employment. This takes the form of:
- Donations: One-off investments (£2.5k) to staff-nominated organisations supporting health and wellbeing for marginalised people.
- Grants: Larger, longer-term investments (£10-50k) in organisations supporting confidence, aspirations, and mental health for marginalised people.
Networks Funding Programme
The Networks Funding Programme is now open for 2025, offering to support knowledge-sharing and professional development for arts and culture professionals across the UK.
The funding is designed to support groups and organisations to run events, gatherings and forums that build skills, share knowledge, and strengthen connections within arts and culture fundraising.
The funding programme is available from Arts Fundraising & Philanthropy, a programme of Cause4.
In this round, AFP is “particularly interested in activity that aims to strengthen business planning, governance, fundraising, earned income, cash management and audience development”.
Applications for the Networks Funding Programme close at 12:00pm (noon) on Friday 6 June 2025.
Decarbonisation funding from ChangeX
Community engagement platform ChangeX, in collaboration with ServiceNow, is expanding the ServiceNow Community Improvement Fund to eight markets, helping fund community improvement projects focused on decarbonisation in the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Germany, Ireland and the US.
The 2025 ServiceNow Community Improvement Fund will provide funding for nonprofits and schools across the United Kingdom to start or expand community projects focused on decarbonisation. Applicants can submit their own project idea or choose from a selection of “proven high-impact climate ideas” that have already had a positive social or environmental impact in other communities across the world.
These two proven ideas include Ecosystem Restoration Communities (ERC), a programme focused on ‘regreening’ the planet by rebuilding soil, fixing water systems, and increasing local biodiversity on degraded land, and Precious Plastic, an initiative designed to reduce plastic waste by encouraging communities to recycle plastic and turn plastic waste into valuable products.
ChangeX is inviting applications from organisations across the United Kingdom until 8 May.
Young Women in Mind grants from the Pilgrim Trust
The Pilgrim Trust is inviting applications to its Young Women in Mind grant programme for 2025.
The programme was set up to help improve the mental health of women aged 16-25 in the UK. The trust has committed £5 million in funding over five years (2021-2026).
Grants are giving to organisations “that increase young women’s access to high quality, age and gender
specific mental health services”.
Grants of £60,000 to £100,000 spread across three years are available.
This year charities need to be working in North East England or Yorkshire and the Humber.
The programme opens on 12 May and the deadline for applications is 7 July 2025.
Benefact Group invites charities to pay it forward
“We believe charities know best what a donation can mean. That’s why we’re putting funds directly into the hands of charities.”
Corporate donor Benefact Group has launched a new initiative that “puts the power of giving directly into the hands of those who understand its impact best: charities themselves”.
Its Pay it Forward campaign is giving away a total of £50,000, but only selects the initial five charities from across the UK and Ireland.
The first five charities were:
💛 Kindness Street Team Glasgow
💜 TinyLife Charity
🩵 Autism Assistance Dogs Ireland
❤️ Giddo’s Gift
💙 Perranporth Surf Life Saving Club
They each received £2,000 and the power to choose the next charity in the chain to receive £2,000.
These were announced, and the five chains will continue with a new charity in each being named each fortnight until the £50,000 is reached on 9 June.
Benefact invite charities to “see how far our giving goes”, as the chains are depicted on a map showing where the money and support flowed.
Pay It Forward is a pilot scheme, part of Benefact Group’s Movement for Good Awards, which gives over £1 million to charities each year. Pay It Forward has a dedicated £50,000 fund.
Chris Pitt, Group Impact Director from Benefact Group said:
“Charities know their sector better than anyone. We’re excited to see where their insight leads and how this trust-based chain of giving plays out. It’s about community, collaboration, and curiosity – what happens when we give charities the reins?”
- Funding news for April 2025 (9 April 2025)
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.