Santander

About the funder

The Santander Foundation funds local, regional and national charities for their work within the UK. We are committed to helping disadvantaged people through our two charitable priorities.

The Foundation brings together the initiatives previously undertaken by Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley savings business. Formerly the Abbey Charitable Trust, the Foundation was set up in 1990 and has given more than £32 million to charities in the UK.

Funding Strands

To help disadvantaged people through:

Education and training

This could be any activity disadvantaged people undertake where they improve their confidence in a skill or their understanding of a subject. This does not have to be formal training or lead to a qualification, although those activities would be eligible too.
Examples could include independent living skills, anger management, or improving self esteem. Other examples could include reminiscence projects for older people and art and craft sessions for disadvantaged children. These are just a few examples and should not be regarded as a definitive list.

Financial capability

This priority covers activities which help disadvantaged people understand how to manage their money. It could include budgeting skills, accessing affordable credit as well as managing the challenges that arise from being a carer, unemployment, disability or relationship break up.

Examples could be the costs of running a credit union, projects delivering financial advice and helping people to understand their benefit entitlement. Successful applications under this priority have included equipping a training kitchen for homeless people who learnt how to budget effectively for their food and then went on to apply these principals to other parts of their lives.

We want to fund an entire element rather than make a contribution to a larger budget. One example would be to fund all of the training materials. Another could be to fund the two days per week that a sessional worker spends working with disadvataged people in a particular area.

What we don’t fund

• Individuals, fundraising events, conferences, research, statutory duties, beneficiaries restricted to a single ethnic or single religious groups, non-charities and outside the UK.
• We cannot fund Community Interest Companies or not-for-profit organisations unless they are also registered charities.
• We cannot fund individuals or charities outside the UK.
• We do not offer multi-year funding.

Grant enquiries

Please contact Alan Eagle; tel:01908 343224 or email

201 Grafton Gate East, MILTON KEYNES MK9 1AN

Or visit our website.

Additional information

Guidelines on how to apply