The Shears Foundation welcomes applications for grants of between £3,000 and £6,000 from charitable organisations who are working in one of our priority areas. These are currently:

  • The development of culture and the arts.
  • The development and provision of educational opportunities for adults and / or children.
  • Protection, preservation or enhancement of the natural environment.
  • Creating stronger / better / more sustainable communities.
  • Promoting health and medicine, with an emphasis on research or education. We currently don't consider applications from Hospices because we make a major annual contribution to a hospice in Newcastle.

We place a great deal of emphasis in supporting organisations whose work is in the Tyne & Wear and Northumberland regions. Around 55-60% of our grant making is in this region. We are also developing our support for groups in the former Harrogate District & The City of York, The City of Bradford and Greater Manchester. Due to the volume of applications for really great work in these core areas, we are not currently accepting applications for work outside these areas.

The Shears Foundation will support project and core costs, including staffing and operational overheads.

We do not contribute to capital projects - by capital projects we mean we won't contribute to the cost of purchasing buildings (but we will pay lease / rent costs); refurbishing buildings; significant repairs to buildings; major outdoor works; vehicles; larger equipment etc.

Our success ratio in 2024/25 (the percentage of grant applications for our small grants programme that were successful) is 32.7%

If you have any questions, or need some help completing your application then please call Carla Greenwood on ‭07860 131297 or book a telephone / Zoom call with her using the link on our home page (Tuesdays and Wednesdays)‬. We have provided links to some useful tools and documents at the bottom of this page, which you will also find useful when considering whether or not to make an application to The Shears Foundation. We recognise that grant applications take considerable time and effort and we hope that these tools are useful in helping you to decide whether or not to apply.

Here are some useful tips for making your application.

  • Please make sure you've had a telephone or Zoom call with us, before you make an application. 
  • Please give us all the information that you can to help our trustees make a decision.
  • Ensure that the financial section of your application is accurate and balances, give us any additional information in the box provided.
  • Our trustees look more favourably on applications where your work is being funded from a range of sources, or when our grant covers the full cost of a single piece of work.
  • Our trustees look more favourably on applications where you can show you are working collaboratively with other groups, organisations and charities.
  • All our grants to non-core groups are between £3,000 and £6,000. Please do not apply for less than the minimum or more than the maximum.
  • You can make an application at any time, applications made after our quarterly closing dates will be considered in the following quarter.
  • Applications that score highly enough in our initial scoring are considered at the end of each quarter by our trustees - our scoring system can be found below.
  • If you need any more tips on making an application, have a look at this PDF.

Our Trustees consider applications on a quarterly basis

In order to be as equitable as possible to all applicants our trustees consider applications on a quarterly basis, with a fixed grant making budget each quarter. Our quarters run as follows:

  • From 1st April to 30th June, with all applications received during this period considered in June and early July. Please note the application deadline for this quarter is 31st May.
  • From 1st July to 30th September, with all applications received during this period considered in early October. Please note the application deadline for this quarter is 31st August.
  • From 1st October to 31st December, with all applications received during this period considered in December and early January. Please note the application deadline for this quarter is 30th November.
  • From 1st January to 31st March, with all applications received during this period considered in March and early April. Please note the application deadline for this quarter is 28th February (29th February in a Leap Year).

Applicants will be informed if their grant application has been successful within six weeks after the deadline date.

To get started with your application please follow the get started link or click on the big red button on this page.

If you would like to know how we handle your data please read our Privacy Policy.

If you would like a copy of our full Grants Making Policy, this can be downloaded here.

If you would like to see the scoring system we use when assessing applications, this can be downloaded here. In 2024/25, applications needed to score an average of 42 and above to progress to the trustee consideration stage.

You can save your application as you go along but, if you’d like to look at our application form before you start, this can be downloaded here.