The Foyle Foundation Fund

Purpose of the Fund:

The Foyle Foundation was formed to implement the will of the late Christina Foyle. She was the daughter of William Foyle who, with his brother, founded the former family-owned bookshop Foyles in Charing Cross Road, London.

The Foundation completed its grant giving programme at the end of 2025, marking 25 years of giving to the fields of the arts, learning, community small grants, state school libraries and health.

The Foyle Foundation has appointed the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland to deliver a final small grants fund on its behalf for community organisations in Northern Ireland.

The fund aims to support ‘projects which generate income or cost savings, contributing to financial sustainability’.

Eligibility:

We recognise that this fund has a broad aim, and we have kept it as such to maximise flexibility for applicants and to enable you to shape proposals to your specific organisational priorities & opportunities.

However, to keep the process manageable we have agreed the following eligibility criterion for potential applicants.

We will not consider applications from sports clubs, CICs, Parent Teacher Associations or organisations with an annual income (in your most recent annual accounts) of more than £300,000.

In addition, you should be able to spend your grant within 12 months of award i.e. by end December 2027.

Priorities:

We will prioritise applications which clearly demonstrate how the funding requested will support income generation and/or generate future cost savings, and which make the strongest return on investment cases.

We will prioritise applications which most clearly demonstrate how the funding requested will support future financial sustainability.

In the event of oversubscription, we will prioritise strong applications from organisations with an annual income of less than £150,000.

By way of example your proposal could focus on:

• The development of fee earning services;
• Generating income through renting out space within your premises;
• Reducing your running costs through energy efficiency improvements or other measures;
• The development of a social enterprise business plan/activities.

Amount of funding available:

You can apply for up to £5,000.

We anticipate making approximately 40 awards.

We will not fund:

Organisations or activities which promote causes that are contrary to our purposes. We will not therefore fund organisations or activities which we determine are linked to the promotion of armaments, alcohol, human rights abuses, tobacco or pornography.

In addition, the fund will not support:

• The advancement of religion. This includes organisations whose purposes include the advancement of religion
• The establishment of endowment of any school or institution providing further education within the meaning of the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1972
• The provision of assistance to any Housing Association within the meaning of the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1976
• Promotion of religious or political activity, including any flags and emblems that may deem to be associated with such
•  CIC Companies Limited by Shares, or CICs without an asset lock clause. Eligible CICs must have at least three unrelated committee members, and/or the majority of the committee unrelated
• Trips outside of Northern Ireland
• Applications from individuals
• Applications from statutory organisations
• Purchase of vehicles
• Holiday schemes
• Parties and shopping trips
• Activities that duplicate existing services
• Retrospective funding
• Substitution for statutory funding
• Groups who have not complied with previous monitoring requirements

Please read the following text before beginning your application:

• You are a locally based not-for-profit, voluntary or community group working in Northern Ireland to improve the quality of life for local people;
• You have an active management committee, with no two related cheque signatories;
• You have a governing document, i.e. Constitution in the name of the applicant organisation;
• You have a current bank account in the name of your organisation. If you are submitting a bank statement that is overdrawn, please provide an explanation.​
• You have up to date annual accounts;
• You have complied with the conditions of previous grants including submission of monitoring returns.

Application deadline:

The submission deadline is Monday 16th November 2026 at 12 noon. We anticipate making awards in mid-January 2027.

Please note: The Community Foundation now uses Fundseeker Portal for all applications and monitoring. If this is your first time applying, or your first time accessing the portal, we recommend reading the ‘How to Apply’ guide before starting your application.

If you are unsure about any of the above text or have any other queries, then please contact the Grants Team at applications@communityfoundationni.org