This annual programme offers grants of between £500 and £1,500 are available to UK based charitable organisations, photographers or artists to support the provision of Community Photography in order to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people under the age of 25.
The charitable objectives of Edinburgh-based the Richard and Siobhan Coward Foundation are:
- To promote, preserve, develop or practise the art of analogue photography
- To support the provision of Community Photography to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people under 25, and
- To support learning in the art of analogue photography
The Foundation aims achieves its charitable objectives by:
- Awarding grants to community photography providers, and
- Awarding grants to projects that have analogue photography at their core.
Activities must have the aim of achieving a beneficial therapeutic effect on a child's or young person's (aged under 25) physical and/or mental health and wellbeing.
Projects might be a single workshop or event, or a programme of linked activities and might involve working with the participants solo or in groups. Examples of activities that could be included are:
- Outings with a photographer to learn how to take pictures of people or landscapes using digital or analogue film.
- Dark room experiences.
- Creating images using techniques such as cyanotype or pinhole cameras, and
- Learning printing techniques using a range of media.
Normally, projects benefitting from these grants would be expected to last for no longer than one-year and be implementable within a year of the grant being awarded.
Grants of between £500 and £1,500 are available. Although matched funding isn’t a necessity, the Trust likes to see that applicants have sought funding from other sources or can provide an in-kind contribution.
Applications may be made by the artist or photographer who will be leading the project or by charitable organisations on their behalf. Projects must take place in the UK.
The Foundation has an annual application deadline. The 2026 deadline is Wednesday 30 September 2026.
Please note that applications received after this deadline will not be accepted, nor will they be held over to the following year. Only successful applicants are notified.
Further information, including details about how to apply, can be found on the Foundation’s website.