Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Yves and Anne Bonavero established the AB charitable trust in 1990 to give expression to their longstanding commitment to championing the cause of human dignity.

Since its inception the trust has focused on serving the most marginalised people in our society.

More than thirty years later, their founding vision remains central to the trust’s ethos.

ABCT’s money is donated to us annually by the Bonavero family, and is then donated directly on to the organisations and initiatives we support, so ABCT doesn’t have any investments of its own.

Accordingly, we have no investment strategy or policy.

The Bonavero family’s wealth broadly comes from Yves Bonavero’s entrepreneurial ventures, of which the biggest is a listed residential developer in Poland, but also includes a range of other enterprises. More information can be found on Yves Bonavero’s biography, and on the Woodsford Consulting website.

When you choose to ‘save and resume later’, a link will appear on the page and be emailed to you, which will enable you to return to the application form. You must do this within 30 days or the application form will be lost. We are not able to access incomplete or lost application forms, and so we advise saving the answers to your questions, and any attachments, locally as well.

Attachments will not be saved between sessions, and so should be attached in your final session, before you submit your application.

We only require the information requested, and additional supplementary information may be requested at a later stage if needed. However, if you wish to submit anything additional and see it as necessary in order to understand your work, then you can email this to us directly.

This may be due to either the format of the file, or the size. If you have any difficulties submitting large files, then contact us directly as we can arrange for you to email these if necessary.

We are always happy to discuss potential applications. You can reach us via email or the number at the bottom of our website. Before you get in touch, please check our guidance on the apply page, as the answer to your question may be available there.

For our open programme we require three year’s financial information, all three years need to be showing a minimum income of £150,000 and be under the upper threshold of £1.5 million. This would include:

- Most recent audited accounts;

- If these are more than one year old, a set of management accounts for the subsequent financial year;

- An income and expenditure budget for the financial year that you are applying in;

- If there is less than six months left of the current financial year, a forecast income and expenditure budget, if possible, showing what is secured/unsecured for the coming financial year.

If you are not sure if you are eligible, please contact the team.

Open programme grants can only be made to charities registered in the UK with either the Charity Commission (England and Wales), OSCR (Scotland) or the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland.

Our open programme requires you to be a registered charity currently; to have one year's audited/independently examined accounts; and to meet the minimum income threshold of £150,000. If your organisation can meet those requirements, you can apply to us.

See also If my income is less than £150,000 or greater than £1.5 million, can I still apply? For financial eligibility.

We recognise that structures can look very different, and sometimes a local or specific project forms a part of a broader organisation. While you may be able to apply, the overall organisation will still have to meet the eligibility criteria (e.g. within the turnover guidelines). The project should form a significant strand of the organisation’s work.

Please note, while these applications are considered on a case-by-case basis, given demand on the open programme from sole/single priority focused organisations, it is unusual that such an application would be prioritised.

Please also note FAQ My organisation has merged with, been acquired by, or forms part of a larger charity, can I still apply? And My project is a legal clinic at a university, am I eligible to apply?

During assessment, we will look at financial health and assessing appropriate reserves levels will play a part in this. There is an opportunity in the financial section of the application form to add extra detail and so if you think your level of reserves may raise questions then do add context here. We may also get in contact during the assessment process to discuss this in more depth.

We do receive applications from organisations that sit within a larger ‘parent’ charity (which may fall outside the open programme income parameters) via our open programme. These are considered on a case-by-case basis. When an application like this is received, we run through a series of questions around the independence of the subsidiary, decision-making, the size and focus of the parent, and how it fits overall with our priority areas.

If your organisation is in the process of or considering merging with another organisation at the time of application, this should be flagged in your application to us.

Please note, while these applications are considered on a case-by-case basis, given demand on the open programme, it is unusual that such an application would be prioritised.

Please also note FAQ My project is part of a charity with a broader focus, can I apply and My project is a legal clinic at a university, am I eligible to apply?

We generally do not accept applications from projects/legal clinics within universities. Where this is the case, it is via invitation only as universities fall outside the scope of the open programme parameters.

Please also note FAQ My project is part of a charity with a broader focus, can I apply? And My organisation has merged with, been acquired by, or forms part of a larger charity, can I still apply?

We recognise that many organisations may be rooted in religious values and this would not make you ineligible to apply. However, we do not fund organisations that promote religion. If you have the promotion/advancement of religion in your constitution, you are not eligible to apply; where this is not specifically outlined in your constitution, but as part of your work you do promote religion and religious teachings, you are also not eligible to apply.

Our anchor programme supports specialist infrastructure organisations. By specialist we mean organisations that work within our identified priority areas. We do not fund ‘generalist’ infrastructure organisations.

A B Charitable Trust understands ‘infrastructure organisation’ to encompass ‘umbrella’ organisations, and those that provide ‘second tier support’, including: providing organisational and skills/knowledge development; network organisations; supporting convening; coalition building and collaborative influencing; providing expert advice to other organisations; and supporting and platforming organisations.

Our understanding of infrastructure also includes organisations creating the foundations for social action and an enabling environment for change in the areas that we work in – movement generous organisations, laying the path for change and building for the future, including for example, community organising, movement building, narrative change, and defence of civic space.

A B Charitable Trust limited funds and each application is considered alongside the other applications that come in at any particular time. Any organisation may apply if they believe their work fits the criteria and guidelines published on the website. We often have high numbers of applications from organisations which fit our priorities but due to demand are unable to fund everything which is eligible. You may find it useful to look at our page on ‘decision making factors’.

The proportion of applications that we are able to fund can be found on our apply page.

If your work fits within A B Charitable Trust’s priorities, then applying for a project rather than core costs will not improve your chances. We understand organisations need unrestricted funding and the majority of our open programme grants are unrestricted. It is our preference to provide unrestricted funding as much as possible so please don’t create a project for the sake of this application, but feel free to put forward a project if this would be preferable for your organisation at the current time.

We recognise that multi-year grants are best practice in grant giving, as they provide increased stability and efficiency to our partner organisations. Our multi-year grants are usually made over two, three or five years, depending on the funding stream. This will usually cover either an organisation’s core costs, or a project which is expected to run over a number of years.

Going forwards, we aim for the vast majority (75%-100%) of our Open Programme grants to be multi-year (typically across three years).

For open programme applications, we do not ask you to specify a grant amount on the application form. Grant amounts awarded can vary depending on factors including financial need, your organisation size, and the budget available. The grant range for the Open Programme is £10,000 - £30,000 pa. If your application is progressed, and if you seek a particular amount to fill a specific gap, you will have an opportunity to explain this to the grant manager assessing your application.

We ask you to choose one priority to apply under, which feels the most appropriate. This will not affect your chances of success.

This question aims to give us a snapshot of how your organisation reflects the communities* you work with, and how you incorporate the views of people you work with to steer the direction of the organisation. For example, this could include representation among your trustees/staff, seeking and responding to feedback, training volunteers from the community, developing services based on needs identified by those you work with etc.

We recognise that this will look different for every organisation, and the relevance of the question could depend on your area of work. This question is to get a sense of your organisation’s thinking in this area.

We do not expect your answer to be longer than a couple of sentences or short paragraph.

* Community could include, for example, a geographical or local community, an ethnic or racialised community, a community of a particular nationality, a community with another shared identity (e.g., sexual orientation or gender), or shared interest based on marginalisation.

Our Directors meet quarterly. We aim for all applicants to receive a letter to confirm the decision in approximately 3 months after the application deadline they have applied for.

If your application is declined, then you can send in a new application for consideration 12 months following your application date.

Yes. Your letter will outline a broad reason for rejection, however if you would like to have a conversation then please contact the team to arrange a telephone call.

Payments are made monthly, towards the end of each month. Prior to payment of an approved grant, we require all grant agreement requirements to be met (including any paperwork, or conditions associated with the grant). Where possible we will make the payment as close as possible to the agreed start date of the grant.

Partner organisations can only hold one open programme grant at a time. This does not apply to special initiatives or the anchor programme, but we would carefully consider why we would give two grants to one organisation rather than supporting two organisations. Any second grant would not be additional unrestricted funding but for a project or piece of work. If this is something you would like to discuss, please contact the team.

We try to visit partner organisations when we can, although this is more likely once you are holding a grant. We rarely visit as part of the application process and view visits to organisations as a good learning opportunity for us.

There is no required fallow period and you can reapply towards the end of your current grant. You can apply for the deadline 12 months after the last deadline you applied to.

Although there is no fallow period and you have previously been successful in applying to us, this does not guarantee that your next application will be successful.

We expect grantholders to keep us updated on significant changes within your organisation. This is to ensure that we can support you in the best way possible, and also that we fulfil our own financial and governance requirements.

Significant organisational changes could encompass a range of things and the below list is intended to give some examples of what these might be. If you are in any doubt, please contact the team.

Examples of organisational changes that we would expect to be informed of:

• Regulatory issues – for example, intervention from the Charity Commission;

• Allegations of malpractice;

• Major change of strategic direction;

• Funding crises and/or risk of closure;

• Departure of key staff, including for example the CEO/Director;

• Significant negative media attention on the organisation;

• Instances of fraud (both by internal and external actors);

• The organisation is merging with, or acquiring, another organisation (either as parent or subsidiary).

We understand that our partners are under significant pressure, and that organisational changes can add to this, but we ask that you inform us at the earliest stage that is possible.

No, we don’t have any branding requirements for our partners, nor do we require that you acknowledge the grant publicly. If you choose to announce the grant publicly or list the grant on your website and require a copy of ABCT’s logo, then please get in contact and we can provide this in a variety of formats.

We do not have a standardised offer for non-financial support (sometimes referred to as ‘funder plus’). However, we may offer support where a grantholder identifies a need and approaches us, or where a need is identified during an application or the course of a grant.