Funding resources

Background

The Prudence Trust is a grant-making charity established in 2020. It invests in young people’s mental health services and research in the UK.

Objectives of fund

The fund aims to support charities and community interest companies working with young people aged between 11 to 25 years old. It also helps to build capacity for monitoring and evaluation. At the end of the funding period, funded organisations will:

• be more confident in collecting the right data to make informed decisions on programme delivery, staff resourcing, cost-effectiveness, and making a case for fundraising and communicating work externally
• be more confident that their programmes are being delivered well and effectively.
• have improved their capabilities around making the best use of data available to them. 
• funded organisations are better positioned to carry out periodic or ongoing evaluations of their services based on their own quality data
• have more reliable information about their work and its effectiveness, making them more credible to other charities, funders and policymakers

Value notes

A total of £1 million is available.

Around 5 or 6 grants are available. Grants start from £10,000.  However, there is no maximum amount, the trust is less likely to consider requests over £300,000.

Who can apply

UK registered charities and community interest companies (CICs) with an income of above £250,000 and 2 years of published accounts can apply.

Groups must also:

• work exclusively with young people
• deliver direct mental health support (therapy or activities socially prescribed for young people experiencing anxiety or depression as mental health support)
• already collect mental health or well-being data

Restrictions

The following are not eligible for funding:

• unregistered charities
• organisations that have been running for less than 2 years
• organisations that do not exclusively work with young people (although applications for projects supporting parents may be considered)
• organisations that do not deliver direct mental health support
• organisations that do not already collect mental health data from their work

Service delivery

Funding will only be considered for costs incurred after June 2025.

Eligible spending

Grants will help organisations to increase their capacity to do quality data collection and to use that data to periodically review services. They will be awarded in June 2025.

Eligible costs include:

• upskilling staff responsible for monitoring an evaluation
• salaries for dedicated data or M&E roles
• software or hardware needed to improve data infrastructure, such as databases
• costs to work with an external evaluator or academic on specific programmes
• external data management and evaluation expertise

How To apply

There is a two-stage application process:

• Groups must first submit an expression of interest form. The deadline for first-stage applications is Monday 3 March 2025 at 4pm.
• Successful applicants will then be invited to complete a full second-stage application. The deadline to complete a second stage application is Tuesday 6 May 2025 at 4pm.

Guidance notes and an Expression of Interest form are available from the Prudence Trust website.

Contact

Email grants@theprudencetrust.org or use the trust's contact form.