The Kelly Family Charitable Trust was founded in 2004 as a grant-giving body. The Trust is interested in funding charities whose activities involve the whole family in initiatives that encourage and nurture a supportive structure within the family unit, and whose aims include the development of strong and supportive family bonds by helping all elements of the family unit to grow together and support each other.

Application Criteria

The Trust has decided to prioritise its funding in favour of charities whose activities involve all or most family members in initiatives that support and encourage the family to work as a cohesive unit in tackling problems that face one or more of its members.

The overall objective is to reinforce the potential benefit and support that family members as a unit can give to each other.

The three areas that the charity wishes to support are:

  • Interventions and support that help families to manage better and prevent the fracture of the family unit, eg relationship counseling, mediation
  • Families where sexual abuse, physical abuse, domestic violence, alcohol abuse and drugs abuse threaten the integrity of the family unit
  • Prisoners and in particular their families, during and after the period of imprisonment

The Trust prefers to support charities whose income is below £500,000. However, larger charities with pioneering pilot projects will be considered

The Trust will consider both capital and revenue grants. The Trust is happy to support requests for core funding as well as project-based grants, and actively encourages applications from relatively new organisations to help them become established.

Applications must be supported by annual accounts where available.

The following will not be considered:

  • Non-registered charities
  • Requests for grants for individuals
  • National projects
  • General appeals
  • Organisations with specific religious or political agendas

Applications should be made on the Kelly Family Charitable Trust’s official application form, which can be found on the How To Apply page.
If a grant is awarded, the charity will be asked to provide a report on its progress and the effective use of its grant during the funding year. The Trust may consider repeat funding requests on receipt of satisfactory progress reports.

Trustees’ Report for the year ending 31st March 2013

During the continuing economic difficulties and uncertainties, the Kelly Family Charitable Trust is pleased to have been able to keep its finances stable enough to be able to continue its funding activities without a significant decrease in the size of grants awarded. The number of grant applications from charities continues to be higher than usual, possibly due to swingeing local government cuts to funding, and the feedback indicates that small charities in particular are struggling.

The situation with Trustees has been fluid this year, with two Trustees having to take time off for pregnancies and another Trustee taking a year’s sabbatical because of pressure of work. The Trust has managed to remain quorate in meetings held during this time, but is now taking steps to recruit new Trustees.

The Trust continues to fund a wide range of charitable activities from both new and repeat applicants, and is particularly sympathetic towards smaller charities who do not have the resources to raise their profiles in order to attract more funding. The continuing policy is to be happy to fund set-up and admin costs as well as projects. The Grant Progress Reports received from our funded charities are particularly encouraging and they appear to be making very good use of their grants.

In the two grant rounds held during the last financial year the Trust has awarded £130,844 in grants spread amongst the following charities:

  • 3D Drumchapel
  • Birmingham Relate
  • Edinburgh Young Carers
  • Families Outside
  • Family Mediation Lothian
  • Guys Footprints
  • Hastings and Rothmere Mediation
  • High Peak Women’s Aid
  • Homelink Support
  • HomeStart Barnet
  • HomeStart Bridgewater
  • HomeStart Teesside
  • Lighthouse
  • Lighthouse Ayrshire
  • Longmead Community Farm
  • Montgomery Family Crisis
  • Relate West Surrey
  • Shepherds Bush Families Project
  • The Haven
  • The J’s Hospice
  • Time for Families
  • Welsh National Opera
  • Westminster Befriending

ON BEHALF OF THE TRUSTEES

  • 3D Drumchapel
  • Chorley and Ribblesdale
  • Ebbw Vale Contact Centre
  • Edinburgh Young Carers
  • Family Matters York
  • Haven
  • Homelink
  • HomeStart Pendle and Ribble
  • PAWS for Kids
  • Relate Brighton
  • Resources for Autism
  • Shepherds Bush Family Centre
  • Sign Post
  • South Cheshire CLASP
  • St Andrews Childrens’ Society
  • Sunderland AFC
  • Surrey Family Link
  • Time for Families
  • Tryangle
  • Walsall Bereavement Fund

The Trust continues to receive Progress Reports from successful applicants on how grants have been used, and uses these as a reference point when considering further requests for funding. The website continues to be updated and revised, and the structure and clarity of the application and progress report forms are assessed regularly and amended when felt necessary.

ON BEHALF OF THE TRUSTEES

Jennifer Kelly, Chairman Of Trustees

3rd August 2011