The Charles Plater Trust
The Charles Plater Trust makes grants of up to £60000 to a wide range of religious and non-religious organisations, people, and groups, supporting leadership, social action, and applied research projects across England and Wales.
Objective of fund:
We are an independent Catholic grant-making charity that exists to enable those who are serving the common good to make an even greater difference. We do this because we want to use our resources to build social justice in the UK.
We achieve this by funding organisations that work with people to reduce poverty, exclusion and social and economic injustices and to empower people of faith to exercise leadership in their communities. We also fund research to improve public policy.
This work is deeply informed by Catholic Social Teaching, the Church’s teaching on how the way in which we all live and work can become more fully human in the light of the Gospel.
Since the Charles Plater Trust awarded its first grants in 2008, we have funded over 70 diverse projects, each contributing to our overall aim of advancing social justice through education.
Leadership for Laypeople - Projects that deepen the awareness of Catholic Social Teaching and Catholic Social Thought to better equip people to take on leadership roles in tackling poverty, exclusion, economic inequality and environmental concerns.
Social Action - Projects that deliver tangible outcomes to tackle poverty, exclusion, economic inequality and environmental concerns for marginalised people and communities.
Applied Research - Projects that develop and apply Catholic Social Teaching and Catholic Social Thought, in partnership with those who are delivering social action work, to ultimately improve public policy and practice.
Who can apply
We judge every application on its respective strengths and encourage applications from diverse and wide-ranging charities. However, we have some operating assumptions about how to best create change with our partners. These are:
1. Applicants with annual incomes below £10 million
We mainly support (but not exclusively) voluntary sector organisations with annual incomes below £10 million, as typically it is still these charities that struggle most to secure income.
2. Applicants with clear outcomes
We are focused on achieving the desired outcomes of The Charles Plater Trust, to ensure that we are being as effective as possible with our limited financial support.
3. We are a ‘shopper’ funder
We are a ‘shopper’ funder, which means that we take a real interest in potential grant recipients to see if they are in a position to deliver on our desired outcomes.?
4. Three types of change
We want to encourage three different types of change through our funding support:
Change for individuals
Achieving significant change for individuals who are the most marginalised in the UK today.
Change for organisations
Enhancing the capacity of organisations to respond more effectively to social needs.
Change for wider society
Generating social or systemic change through policy or practice change.
We do not expect any one application to be able to generate change in all three categories, but we do expect applicants to be clear about what type of change they are aiming for with their planned programmes and activities and how they will know if they have been successful in reaching their change goals.
Restrictions
- We cannot fund charities with an annual income above £10 million. The only exception to this if for Universities and HE Institutions, who irrespective of their size and annual income, can apply for both small or large grants from CPT, on condition that they must be partnering with a micro, small, medium or large charity in their project proposal to us to be eligible for our funding in a joint bid of this nature.
- Projects that are outside our three priority themes – leadership for laypeople; social action and/or applied research.
- Work that is not legally charitable.
- Work that does not have a direct benefit in England or Wales or where the applicant organization is not based in England or Wales.
- Proposals that do not provide all the supporting information required including a supporting reference from an external referee.
- Grants to individuals. Please note that the Trust will consider applications to fund an individual’s postgraduate scholarship on a relevant topic, providing that the applying academic organisation ensures that it holds an open competition to select a candidate to undertake the grant-funded research.
- Organisations without at least three non-executive trustees or directors.
- Grants for over £60,000 in total.
- Grants for any capital costs. CPT will only fund revenue project costs, not capital costs. Revenue costs are the costs of making projects happen. They occur during the project, for that project. Capital costs are for items which last beyond the project, and these cannot be funded by CPT and so should not be included in project budgets.
- Grants for any core costs. Core costs are the running costs of your organisation. This is the money you need to make the work happen. These are also called overheads, running costs or operating costs. Unfortunately, due to the demand on CPT’s limited resources we now do not cover core costs or overheads in project grants, so please do not include these in your project budget to us.
- We will only fund one successful proposal at a time from any one applicant.
- The Trust will consider applications from organisations seeking to use a Plater Trust grant as match funding as part of a larger project, but only if it contributes to the effective delivery of The Charles Plater Trust mission.
- Applications from a consortium of organisations will be given consideration if the project has a clearly listed chief contact from the lead organisation and fulfils all other eligibility criteria.
Eligible Expenditure
Our three educational funding priorities
1. Leadership for Lay People
Projects that deepen the awareness of Catholic Social Teaching and Catholic Social Thought to better equip people to take on leadership roles in tackling poverty, exclusion, economic inequality and environmental concerns in their communities.
2. Educational Social Action
Projects that have an educational dimension to deliver tangible outcomes to tackle poverty, exclusion, economic inequality and environmental concerns for marginalised people and communities.
3. Applied Research
Projects that develop and apply Catholic Social Teaching and Catholic Social Thought, in partnership with those who are delivering social action work, to ultimately improve public policy and practice.
How to apply
For more information, and to apply, please visit: https://www.plater.org.uk/grant-application/large-grant