The Henry Smith Charity

Important Update – Changes to County Grant Programme

Our County Grant Programme for work in East Sussex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Suffolk and Surrey will end this year.

If you would like to apply for funding in any of these Counties, we will be open for applications until 30 September 2021, unless the budget is spent before this date. As soon as funds have been fully allocated, we will update our website to let you know.

If you are an existing County Grant Holder, or secured a multi-year grant in 2021, in any of these five counties, future payments will be paid as scheduled, subject to the stated terms and conditions of your grant.

The County Grant Programme for work in Kent, Leicestershire and West Sussex will continue until further notice.

Reasons for the Decision

We have traditionally run this programme in eight counties which had particular links with the Henry Smith Charity. Individual, locally based County Trustees manage the programme in their area, and we have been delighted to help a large number of small charities over many years with this approach. However, in recent years, as a number of County Trustees have retired, we have put in place interim measures to continue making grants with the support of local Community Foundations or with the generous support of retired trustees.

Following a recent review, the Board has decided, as a national funder working to reduce disadvantage across the UK, we should look at our funding of small community organisations in the areas of the highest deprivation nationally not regionally. As a result, our County Grant Programme for work in five Counties will stop at the end of this year and as the three remaining County Trustees retire, the County Grant programmes in Kent, Leicestershire and West Sussex, will also progressively close. We will update our website with details of future closures with good notice.

Our Thanks

We would like to thank the Suffolk and Surrey Community Foundations for their support and professionalism in helping us to continue to run these programmes in recent years. We are also very grateful to past and present County Trustees and specifically, those retired trustees who have been willing to manage the programme in their county area following retirement from the Board.