Our Small Grants Programme was developed to support grass roots women led organisations with an annual income of £50,000 or less. It was specifically aimed at smaller community organisations that have often been started to address a local and unmet need and are rooted in lived experience.

The focus of this funding opportunity is organisations that are led by women and whose beneficiaries are 100% women and girls. We want to support work that is taking place with young women and girls aged between 11 and 30 who have been in the criminal justice system or who are at a high risk of entering it. Grants of £10,000 are awarded and these contribute to salaries, activity costs and venue hire costs for those organisations delivering the projects.

In 2025, nine projects were funded to organisations working with girls who are either outside education, at risk of being excluded from school or vulnerable to gang involvement and exploitation. The organisations provided a wide variety of activities including dance, self-defence and peer mentoring during school holidays, evenings and weekends in both school and community settings. The programme has been paused for 2026.

 

For more general information about the types of interventions and projects we support, please see our section on Young People & the Criminal Justice System.