How to Apply
Charities and Non-Profit Organisations

General Information – please read before applying

As of February 2024, Grant meetings are bi-monthly – see home page for details.

1. This page is for any organisation that has multiple defined beneficiaries – Charities, schools, community groups, sports clubs, CIOs and CICs.
2. Only one application is accepted for EITHER Trust in any 12 month period.  We do not accept applications to both Trusts at the same time.
3. The Gibbons Family Trust can make grants to organisations that help children and young people up to the age of 25 living in either Devon, or the Isle of Thanet. READ FURTHER ESSENTIAL CRITERIA FOR APPLYING here.
   
4. The David Gibbons Foundation can make grants to organisations that benefit residents of Devon, provided they are either (or a combination of) physically or mentally unwell, in need of financial help, or are older adults. READ FURTHER ESSENTIAL CRITERIA FOR APPLYING HERE.
   
5. If the application is successful we will ask you to acknowledge receipt of the grant by email. Failure to acknowledge grants will impact the success of future applications.
6. We require grants to be spent within 6 months of receipt. An extension to this 6 months can be made in certain circumstances, only with the Trustees’ permission.
7. Monitoring of grant spending is required from receipients of larger grants, and welcomed from all beneficiaries.  We will send requests out periodically, some time after a grant is awarded.  However if you haven’t been sent a request to complete a monitoring form and would like one, please email enquiries@gibbonstrusts.org. Failure to complete monitoring forms on request will impact the success of future applications.
8. The Trusts are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people, and vulnerable adults, and expects all applicants to share this commitment.

Requirements for applying

• Attach a covering letter with your application please, on your organisation’s letter headed stationery.
• We require you to be very specific about how a potential grant from us would be spent, and attach evidence to back this up. For example, quotes or links to quotes, budgets, cost breakdowns, business plans – we want to understand exactly how a grant from us would be used. If we do not have enough information with the intial application this could cause delays and potentially mean missing the next Trustees’ meeting. We require more detail from you than to simply say a grant would be for ‘running costs’, for example.
• As part of our risk assessment process, we need to be able to verify you exist in some way. If we can’t find you online anywhere, then we require an emailed copy of your signed constitution + evidence of what you do. This evidence could be a reference from an independent organsation that you work with, reviews from beneficiaries, leaflets or posters. Please attach this to the application, or email separately if multiple documents.
• We require sight of the most recent financial accounts of ALL organisations, (unless in the 1st financial year). If your most recent year end was 6 months + ago when you apply to us, we will be wanting to have sight of those accounts (even if in draft form).
  • For registered charities we look at the Charity Commission website, please make sure your latest accounts are included there and the annual return is up to date.
  • For CICs we check the Companies House website for latest accounts
  • For all other organisations, that do not have accounts on either of these websites, we require you to upload a copy of your latest accounts.
• At the end of the online form there is the opportunity to upload newsletters, brochures, leaflets that you feel may enhance the application. If you are submitting multiple attachments please be aware that this may take a little time to submit – do not press submit again or refresh your browser, please be patient! You can save your application and revisit it.

Payment of Grants