Northwood Charitable Trust

The Northwood Charitable Trust, based at northwoodhouse.org, is a Scottish philanthropic organization dedicated to enhancing lives through community, heritage, and cultural enrichment, advancing education, and promoting physical and mental health and wellbeing. It prioritizes tackling deprivation, poverty, and inequality, fostering resilient communities where people can live, work, and prosper. With core values of improving quality of life, supporting vulnerable groups, and delivering tangible local benefits, the Trust adopts a relationship-focused approach, selectively engaging charities aligned with its mission rather than broadly soliciting applications.

It funds a broad spectrum of charitable activities, including arts and culture, disaster/emergency services, education and training, environment, healthcare, mental health, sport, and physical activity. Priority beneficiaries encompass carers, children and young people, older people, those with ill-health or disabilities, and women and girls. Grants support capital projects, revenue needs, core costs, services, and initiatives driving community development, heritage preservation, and inclusion, with a track record in education, health, wellbeing, and grassroots efforts.

Eligible applicants are UK-registered charities, preferably small- to medium-sized community-based organizations operating in Dundee and Tayside (primary focus), Angus, Perth & Kinross, Fife, Aberdeen City & Aberdeenshire, Inverness-shire, or occasionally elsewhere in Scotland. No strict income thresholds apply, though local impact is key. Typical grants range from £5,000 to £30,000. Applications begin with an expression of interest via email on a rolling basis; promising ones receive full application invitations, with decisions tied to periodic trustee meetings—no fixed deadlines or online portal.

Distinctively, the Trust shuns standard open calls, favoring invited proposals from mission-aligned partners, and imposes no religious restrictions. It differentiates through flexible capital/revenue support for high-impact local projects, avoiding large national entities in favor of grassroots changemakers addressing Scotland's social challenges.