GrantRadar

The February Foundation

The February Foundation Grants

A permanently open, form-free grants programme for UK registered charities. You email a two- or three-page application and the trustees decide monthly. The main focus since 2006 has been end-of-life care in hospices and hospice-at-home, though the Foundation funds more widely. The median award is GBP 5,000 and core, project and capital costs are all considered. Only around 20% of applications succeed, and the exclusions list is long and specific.

Apply on the funder’s site
You could get
Amount not specified
no fixed round
Deadline
Rolling
apply any time
Effort
Moderate
full application with documents

Who can apply

  • UK registered charities only — the Foundation asks outright that you do not apply if you are not one, and Community Interest Companies, individuals, housing associations, NHS trusts and non-departmental government bodies are all excluded
  • Beyond that the gate is the exclusions list, which rules out a long run of causes including education at every level, mental health, medical research, military and veterans' charities, single-faith organisations, community centres, village halls and youth clubs
  • Overseas projects are excluded, so the work must be in the UK
  • Successful applicants must not re-apply until at least 12 months after receiving their most recent grant, and unsuccessful ones must wait 12 months from their most recent application

What it funds

  • Core costs, project costs or capital costs

The Foundation's main focus since it started in 2006 has been end-of-life care in a hospice and hospice-at-home context, and it points applicants to its latest accounts for a breakdown of everything it funded in the last year.

It is happy to part-fund projects.

Re-applications may be for the continuation of a previously funded project rather than a new one each time.

What it will not fund

  • Air ambulances
  • Animal support charities
  • Charities which are party-politically driven
  • Charities with a commercial bias for a particular product or company
  • Charities with an aggressive religious bias
  • Child care
  • Citizens' Advice Bureaux
  • Community centres
  • Community Interest Companies (CICs)
  • Education, including adult and further, higher, primary, secondary, and special educational needs
  • Housing associations
  • Individuals
  • Medical assistance and detection animal charities
  • Medical research
  • Mental health charities
  • Military charities, including those for veterans
  • Minibuses
  • NHS trusts, or charities which fund them
  • Non-departmental government bodies
  • Outdoor activity centres
  • Overseas projects
  • Scouts, Guides, Brownies, Cubs and similar organisations
  • Single-faith organisations
  • Sports clubs, unless only for the mentally or physically disabled
  • Village halls
  • Youth clubs and centres

this exclusions list was last updated on 10 July 2026 and the trustees review the giving strategy at least once a year, so check it before applying

How to apply

  1. Check the eligibility exclusions list on the Foundation's home page before doing anything else
  2. Download the one-page 'Additional Application Guidelines' and follow them — they ask for short clear sentences, the amount requested and the full project cost in your first paragraph, no photographs, no text boxes, no emotive language, and at least two years of comparative data with the actual dates stated
  3. Write the application as a Word document or PDF of two or three A4 sides in a reasonable font size
  4. Email it to Richard Pierce-Saunderson at rps@thefebruaryfoundation.org as an attachment, not in the body of the email, with the budget as a separate document

there is no application form, and hardcopy applications and links to documents are not accepted

the Foundation asks you to say if you used AI to generate the application

emails are acknowledged when processed rather than on receipt — allow at least four weeks before chasing

Have ready

  • Details, budget and number of users of the proposed project — or your budgeted core costs if applying for core costs
  • Beneficial outcomes with data, statistics or numbers, for example GAD/PHQ, KPIs or survey results
  • The full cost of raising voluntary income (grants and donations), especially if it is not split out in your accounts
  • How much cash you have in the bank at the time of application
  • The level of your free reserves at the time of application, not those in your most recent accounts
  • The number of patients, clients or participants a week at the time of application, both for the project and across the whole organisation
  • Your headcount in FTE at the time of application
  • Your most recent audited accounts in their entirety
  • Your bank details, on a bank statement less than 3 months old

hospices must also give total fundraising cost including trading as a percentage of total cost; admin (non-clinical, non-fundraising) costs as a percentage of entire costs; in-patient bed occupancy; day hospice or outpatient capacity utilisation; home care hours delivered; the latest CQC rating and its date; and the most recent Quality Account if there is one

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