Deadline: 10-Feb-2025
Applications are now open for the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists Charity’s grant programme.
Funding Information
- They are a small funder and therefore usually only fund projects up to £15,000. In a minority of projects, where funding is over £15,000, and once the members have established a working relationship with the charity or educational organisation concerned, the WCIT Charity will consider requests for funding to support the implementation of the project.
- This policy ensures that any financial support from the WCIT Charity is given added leverage by being linked to the expertise and advice of the members. They want to put the money where it can have the most impact. Therefore, funding applications to the WCIT Charity for a small fraction towards the cost of a large project (e.g., £15,000 toward a £300,000 initiative) are unlikely to be successful.
Funding Criteria
- They are more likely to fund the development and delivery of innovative new services, solutions, training, apps, analytics, AI, robotics, or accessibility features/hardware; projects where they are a material or sole funder; projects where they are sole funder of the IT component of a larger project; and organisations that could benefit from the pro bono support.
- They will not fund core running costs (including the operational running costs of existing IT infrastructure), political/lobbying work, local authorities or councils, loans/debt repayments, work that has already been delivered/existing services, consultancy costs, or projects that seek to build an endowment.
Eligible Projects
- As an IT charity, all projects they fund must make use of information technology, and must relate to one or more of the priority areas – education, inclusion, IT for charities, and public understanding of IT. Projects need to demonstrate an innovative use of IT, be scalable for wider replication, and be sustainable over time. As all of the grants are restricted, they expect recipients to produce formal reports on their outcomes.
- Given the large number of applications they receive and the smaller number of grants they can actually make, it may be useful to understand which sorts of things are more or less likely to receive funding.
Eligibility Criteria
- You are eligible for the funding if you are a registered charity, educational establishment or organisation with a formal not-for-profit constitution such as a community interest company; CICs limited by shares may also apply. They do not fund individuals or private companies.
- They accept applications from new organisations, as long as they are legally constituted and can provide them with the required documents. If a new organisation cannot provide them with their most recent audited or independently examined accounts, then an account overview (with clear details of income and expenditure) will be sufficient.
For more information, visit WCIT.