Unrestricted grants of up to £150,000 over 3 years are available for small expert legal hub organisations across the UK to help them scale up their activities to deliver positive social change for communities. The Foundation is particularly interested in receiving Expressions of Interest from organisations that have a focus on housing, education and/or social care.
The Foundation defines legal ‘hubs’ as civil society organisations that meet all three of these characteristics:
- Have specific and demonstrable legal expertise relevant to their social change goals.
- Offer expert legal information, advice and / or representation to civil society organisations, and
- Collaborate to (a) support others to recognise when, where and how legal action can be an effective tool of social change; and/or (b) use legal action to achieve social change.
This funding can be used to support hub activities which use legal action in all its forms – whether that is to empower individuals and groups, persuade public and private bodies, challenge government, or a mix of all three.
The Foundation particularly wants to encourage applications from areas that have received less funding from the Foundation in the past, such as organisations:
- With a focus on housing, education and/or social care.
- Working in Wales or the English regions outside of Greater London, and
- Which focus on less used areas of law, for example labour law or under-utilised areas of equality laws such as race equality provisions.
Grants of up to £150,000 are available over 3 years. Grants are flexible but must be used for legal ‘hub’ activities.
To be eligible, applicants must have an income of under £750,000. Organisations that have previously received a grant from the Foundation for hub activities are not eligible to apply to this fund. Please see the Application Guidelines for full eligibility requirements.
The fund has a 2-stage application process.
The first stage is a maximum 500-word of Expression of Interest. The deadline for the Expression of Interest is Tuesday 30 April 2024.
Applicants that are successful at the Expression of Interest stage will be asked to submit a detailed written application. The deadline for the second stage is Wednesday 3 July 2024.
Further information about the Strengthening Civil Society: Fund to Support Expert Legal ‘Hub’ Organisations, can be found on the Foundation’s website.