Alligator Trust

The Alligator Trust is a discretionary grant-making charity embodying a generalist philosophy of flexible, trustee-led support for diverse charitable purposes across social needs. Its core values prioritize pragmatic responsiveness, absolute trustee discretion, and openness to any recognized charitable activity, believing systemic change arises through modest, targeted interventions addressing multifaceted disadvantage via unrestricted, project-specific, or core funding. It champions grassroots charities delivering practical relief, community empowerment, and holistic impact without prescriptive frameworks, fostering partnerships that sustain vulnerable populations through adaptive, evidence-informed action.

It funds interventions tackling prevention or relief of poverty including financial hardship support, food insecurity programs, and economic development initiatives like employment training and skills-building for unemployed individuals and families in crisis; accommodation and housing projects addressing homelessness prevention, supported housing, and shelter for those experiencing housing insecurity; community development activities such as befriending schemes, peer support groups, and outreach strengthening social cohesion for isolated individuals, ethnic minorities, and disadvantaged communities; overseas aid and famine relief delivering emergency food distribution, refugee support, and international development for communities facing poverty and disaster; religious activities including faith-based counselling, community centres, and spiritual care for faith communities; alongside health services, arts therapies, and general poverty alleviation for vulnerable people encompassing children, young people, elderly residents, carers, and those with complex needs. Supported models include day services, drop-in centres, therapeutic activities, advocacy, mentoring, and small capital for community infrastructure, emphasizing preventative, community-led, and person-centred approaches to build resilience.

With no significant exclusions beyond English charity law parameters, it prioritizes grassroots organizations serving vulnerable beneficiaries like families in poverty, homeless people, care leavers, rural communities, and overseas populations in famine or aid crises, alongside faith-based initiatives and projects for economic disadvantage. Distinctive for its broad-spectrum flexibility, lack of thematic silos, and preference for small-scale, unrestricted grants to UK and international charities without regional bias, it uniquely enables modest innovations in housing, faith, poverty relief, and community empowerment for underserved groups.