The Foundation is a small charitable trust, set up in 1972, with the objects of “the relief of poverty and the provision of educational and recreational facilities for persons in the Area”; “the area” is what is now the borough of Sandwell and county of Staffordshire.

We have an annual income of approximately £7,000, derived from the Foundation’s investments. Our income is received at the end of each month and grant decisions are made at that time. All of the income is dispensed in grants and this amounts to about 35 – 40 grants per year. 

This means that we sometimes have to turn requests down because we have no funds available at a particular time. 

We prefer requests for grants to come through the medium of Social Services or other welfare organisations such as Citizens’ Advice or housing, health or education organisations. 

If an individual is applying direct, we will need either a supporting letter, or e-mail, from an organisation or details of someone we can contact. 

We have no resources to check the circumstances of potential grant recipients and have to rely on the information included in requests. It is important therefore that requests include sufficient information to enable us to decide speedily and to prioritise if we have a number of requests under consideration at any one time. 

If we do not have this information this may lead to delays in a decision or us inadvertently not giving a request the appropriate priority.

We usually give grants of between £100 and £1000 prefer that this is for some specific expense or is a contribution to help complete funding for a larger item. These are often requests for furniture, clothes, household items, utility bills etc. but could equally be help towards the purchase of equipment though, if the request is for a single expensive item, we would need to be assured that the rest of the funding was available (in appropriate circumstances, we could allocate funding to be held available for a limited period whilst the balance was sought from other sources). 

Requests can be made online via the website form. 

We consider all outstanding requests at the end of each month; in exceptional circumstances we can deal with a case more quickly if you contact us by phone in advance of the written request and explain the need for urgency. 

Please note that sometimes our cash flow, or holidays, causes some delay.

Grants are paid by cheque and will normally be sent to the organisation forwarding the request, and made out to the organisation. If any different arrangement is required this should be specified in the request. 

As we may have to choose some requests to select and some to reject because of financial constraints, a request must include the following: