Grant of up to £5 million available through Postcode Lottery Funding Programme

The Postcode Lottery offers grants through six trusts across England, Scotland and Wales. One sizeable programme is The Dream Fund, which has been created to help charities collaborate and apply for their dream project. One award of up to £5 million is available for a single transformational and groundbreaking project. If you’ve not started your application, then time is not on your side. The deadline for formal expressions is 31 July 2026. Click here for the full details:  Postcode Lottery Dream Fund.

The Dream Fund supports charities to develop innovative solutions to society’s most challenging problems. Applications that score highly in their originality, ambition and collaborative nature stand the highest chances of success.

Funding criteria:

• Charities can apply to deliver a project that spans 1-5 years.
• Applications must be from 2-4 organisations that are working in collaboration.
• The lead partner must be a registered charity.
• Project partners can be charities, universities, companies, local authorities, other not-for-profit organisations or research institutes.
• Applicants can apply more than once, either as a lead or a partner organisation (a maximum of twice).
• All applications must reserve at least 5% of the budget for communications and PR to maximise the project promotion.
• The lead partner must have an annual income of at least £5 million. It is not possible to combine the incomes of the partners to reach the income threshold.
• Applications must be innovative, creative and original, and present projects that are a genuine ‘dream’.

Not able to apply in time – how about up to £50,000 to help your community?

The Postcode Lottery also offer 3-year funding for registered charities, community interest companies and charity community benefit societies with an annual income between £10,000 and £1 million. Grants up to £50,000 are available, depending on your organisation’s income.