Grants
We are committed to a long-term funding approach which works towards systemic change and social justice. We aim to do this by intervening at different points in the ecosystem to protect and improve access to justice. This includes funding:
- Access to specialist legal advice, so rights can be realised
- Preventative work and ‘upstream’ advice and interventions that prevent legal crises from developing
- Increased public understanding of rights and how to exercise them
- Work which uses the learning from frontline advice provision to effect broader systems and policy change
Explore working with us
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Apply for a grant
Your gateway to funding opportunities
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What we’re funding
Making justice accessible for those who need it
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Information for current funded partners
Your grant programme resources
We award multi-year, flexible, core cost grants wherever possible
to organisations working with, and for communities. Our approach is underpinned by the following guiding principles
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1We are evidence led
so that funding is directed where it is needed most and can have greatest impact, such as to geographies or communities of highest need/deprivation where there is limited access to advice provision. We draw from a wide range of sources of insight about need and activity, including data.
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2We are equitable and fair
in our approach, ensuring that our processes and ways of working are inclusive and robust. We are upfront about what is expected and offer support and guidance where needed to a diverse range of organisations.
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3We are effective
in how we award funding so that this will make a difference for those most in need. This might mean funding new or different ways of doing things which help more people to have access to free legal advice.
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4We are collaborative
in working with free legal advice organisations and the funding community to develop and implement grant programmes, sharing the evidence and learning we gather for wider benefit. Including supporting open and trusting interactions between different parties in the funding system.
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5We are efficient
in how we spend the funds we raise, minimising overheads and maximising the proportion of our income which goes straight to the frontline.
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6We are transparent
in sharing what informs decisions about funding; governance processes and the processes for distributing funding including information on who has received funding.
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7We have long term vision
with a focus on contributing to access to justice including future proofing organisations to be able to work long term, by fully covering costs and overheads.
Transparency in grant making
We share all our grant making data through 360Giving GrantNav so you can see exactly how much we give and who we support.
The Access to Justice Foundation is different from a lot of other funders. They have a unique recognition that organisations need a stable infrastructure to deliver support and build innovative partnerships to help those that need it most.
Funded partner
Learning and evaluation
Through development of an evidence base we can better understand and demonstrate the transformative impact of advice, the barriers many face when seeking support and make the case for continued investment in frontline provision across the UK.
We do this by undertaking research, collating evidence from the organisations we fund and collaborative working that includes:
- Building on existing learning that has been achieved to date in our collaborative work with others and via previous and existing funding programmes.
- Strategic engagement and influencing aimed at supporting better coordination and alignment of different funding approaches and developing shared outcomes which maximise impact, extend reach and avoid duplication.
- Sharing insight on what we are learning and how we are working to contribute to broader initiatives, influence policy and practice and support learning and development at the frontline.
When designing grant programme Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) we prioritise:
- Being clear on what we want to understand or evidence
- Outlining the purpose and working collaboratively to design the approach
- Understanding how this is translated into specific questions or thematic areas for further exploration
- Consideration about feasibility, timing and doing no harm (to people, to existing strategies, to a wider system).
- Taking a proportionate approach which avoids undue burden on funded organisations
It is important that any monitoring, evaluation and learning approach aligns with our grant making strategy.
We are guided by the following considerations when demonstrating impact from grant funding:
- Ensure funded partners benefit from the broader learning from the programmes to maximise impact across the board.
- Focus on the individuals helped by the organisations we fund to ensure people remain at the heart of the grant-making strategy.
- Develop meaningful outcome measures, in line with those used across funded sectors.
We’re committed to best grant making practice
We appreciate frontline free legal advice providers struggle with capacity. We follow IVAR’s eight commitments to open and trusting grant making to keep our grant making and reporting processes as clear, relevant, and streamlined as possible.
Making good use of undistributed damages from collective actions
We have set out a specific grant making strategy to ensure that undistributed damages from cases like this are put to best use.
Working with a Funding Advisory Group, including experts from Advice UK, Age UK, Citizens Advice, Consumer Voice, Law Centres Network, and Which? we have developed guiding principles and priorities for this area of funding.
Any funds received from the collective actions regime will be focused in three broad areas.
Support for individuals in their communities
This will prioritise funding long-term costs to support access to free legal advice for those who need it most, both at the local and national level.
Activity to support policy changes
We will fund work which addresses the underlying causes of advice and ultimately reduces the need for individuals to seek advice and bring cases. This will be done in partnership with frontline and community groups.
Mass reach through citizen engagement of legal rights
We will leverage its advice and grantee networks to encourage better understanding of rights and responsibilities as well as the development of a research and insights infrastructure to understand areas of need. This will include issues around consumer redress.
Each of these areas will be prioritised according to where the need is the greatest, the specific circumstances of the case and how impact can be maximised. Grant making decisions will also be determined by the amount of funds available from each case and will balance short term need with building capacity over the long term.
Our first collective actions funded grants programme
The money awarded in a recent case is likely to form the basis of our first collective actions funded grants programme in early 2026, depending on when funds are received. We will apply the above approach to these grants, making them unrestricted and long term. We are in the process of designing the criteria for this fund, including through speaking with other funders to align our approach and avoid duplication.
