DWF Foundation - Grants

Supporting charitable initiatives that make a positive impact in communities where DWF people live and work. The Foundation helps organisations to tackle social challenges and improve life opportunities.

Provided by:

DWF Foundation

Funder website:

DWF Foundation Application Form

Maximum value:

£5,000.00

Objective of fund:

Grants are given to initiatives that develop and improve local communities by:

• Tackling a specific community issue.

• Helping voluntary and community groups become more effective and efficient.

• Encouraging the involvement in the community of those too often excluded.

• Enabling young people to develop skills for the benefit of the community.

Rolling Programme

This fund operates on a rolling basis with periodic opening and closing dates.

Who can apply

The DWF Foundation supports registered charities with an impact in one or more of the following areas:

• Homelessness

• Health and wellbeing

• Employability

• Education

• Environment and Sustainability

These themes also align to DWF's purpose and enable us to work together to maximise the support given to communities.

Grants are given to initiatives that develop and improve local communities by:

• Tackling a specific community issue.

• Helping voluntary and community groups become more effective and efficient.

• Encouraging the involvement in the community of those too often excluded.

• Enabling young people to develop skills for the benefit of the community.

Restrictions

The DWF Foundation will only fund charitable causes. We are not able to fund the following areas of work:

• Academic research

• Activities for which a statutory body is responsible

• Activity taking place in school time that are a statutory responsibility.

• Animal welfare

• Evaluation which is not related to the funded work

• Every day running costs and core salaries

• General fundraising appeals

• Individuals

• Loans or business finance

• Other grant making bodies

• Professional fundraisers or bid writers

• Professional qualifications

• Recurrent funding

• Redundancy payments

• Religious and political causes

• Sponsorship/marketing appeals/fundraising costs

• Startup costs for new organisations

• The advancement of religion

• Universities/HE facilities

• Vehicles and minibuses

• Work that has already taken place

Eligible Expenditure

Expenditure We Will Not Fund:

Core staff salaries, management costs, or ongoing staffing commitments.

Statutory responsibilities that are the duty of local authorities, health services, schools, or other public bodies to provide.

General organisational overheads, including rent, utilities, insurance, and routine administration costs.

Projects that create long-term employment liabilities for the organisation.

Retrospective funding for costs already incurred.

The Foundation may consider funding sessional workers, freelance staff, or fixed-term project roles where these are directly required to deliver the proposed activity and are clearly linked to the grant-funded project. Such roles must be time-limited, project-specific, and not form part of the organisation's ongoing staffing structure or core operating costs.

This approach ensures that grants are focused on delivering direct benefit to beneficiaries and supporting specific charitable activities rather than ongoing organisational expenditure.

How to apply

Due to the large number of applications we received from international organisation that are not eligible for our support, before completing the application form please contact our DWF Foundation Manager by email clare.beavan@dwf.law to discuss your application and eligibility. Applications from international organisation not approved to apply by our DWF Foundation Manager will not be considered. 

To support you in making an application to DWF Foundation we offer online workshops. You can book onto one of these workshops vis the DWF Foundation website pages https://dwfgroup.com/en-ie/news-and-insights/events/dwf-foundation-application-workshop  

Useful Links

Grant guidelines can be found here: https://dwfgroup.com/-/media/dwf-global-site/pdfs/about/dwf-foundation-grant-guidelines-january-2026.pdf 

The guidelines also include application deadlines for the year - there are three grant committee meetings per year.