Grants of up to £25,000 per year over 3 years (ie up to £75,000) are available to UK registered charities working in the UK in the areas of Social and Criminal Justice. Grants are also available for overseas projects.
The Charles Hayward Foundation's Main Grant programme provides grant funding for charitable activities under the following categories:
- Heritage and Conservation (Main Grants)
- Older People (Small Grants only)
- Overseas (Main Grants only), and
- Social and Criminal Justice (Main Grants)
The following funding is currently available:
Social & Criminal Justice: offers grants of between £15,000 to £25,000 per annum for 1-3 years. Up to £25,000 may be available for a pilot project. Applying UK registered charities must have an annual income of between £350,000 and £4 million. The overall aim of funding in this area is to prevent people entering the criminal justice system and to support those already in the system to move on and rebuild their lives. Support is available for the following:
- Preventative and diversionary projects for young people at risk of offending including tailored interventions identifying and addressing the particular needs of girls and young women.
- Programmes of support directed towards rehabilitating the victims of domestic abuse and criminal exploitation.
- Programmes, particularly those with a focus on young offenders, combining prison based and community interventions dealing with rehabilitation of offenders, accommodation and support on release, helping with maintaining family relationships, mentoring, and mapping and creating pathways to employment.
- Schemes offering viable alternatives to custody, in particularly for women and young people, and
- Targeted early intervention programmes aimed at reaching the most troubled and vulnerable families in a community.
Overseas: one-off grants up to £15,000. Applying UK registered charities must have an annual income of between £150,000 and £4 million. Grants are available for projects that improve the livelihoods of disadvantaged communities in Commonwealth Countries of Africa such as:
- Clean water and sanitation
- Development of sustainable livelihoods in the context of environmental and wildlife conservation, and
- Self sustainability through training in farming skills and income generation activities.
The Foundation likes to see that applicants have sought and secured matched funding from elsewhere. The Foundation’s preference is to support projects that are at a developmental stage or that are clearly innovative. It likes to fund activities that may not otherwise take shape without its support. Additionally, the Foundation prefers to fund projects in their initial stages that provide early intervention to society's challenges.
Details of previous grant awards are available on the Foundation’s website.
The Main Grants Programme for Social and Criminal Justice has no application form. Applicants are required to submit a proposal of no more than 4 pages of A4, which should be emailed.
The emailed submission should include:
- Name and location of organisation
- Contact details
- Description of organisation
- Description of project
- Project aims
- Project cost
- Funds already raised and pledged
- Outstanding shortfall
- Project timetable, and
- The most recent set of audited accounts
The closing date for applications to the Main Grants programme is Friday 18 September 2026 for the Foundation's November 2026 Grants Panel meeting.
There is a 2-stage application process for the Main Grants programme. Applicants successful at Stage 1 (the emailed submission outlined above) will then be considered by the Foundation at one of its regular Stage 2 meetings.
Further information, guidance, an Eligibility Quiz and details about how to apply to the Main Grant programme, is available on the Foundation’s website.