Owen Family Trust

The trust funds youth initiatives including after-school clubs, mentoring, and skills development for young people facing barriers. They also support older people’s services addressing social isolation, befriending, day activities, and intergenerational programmes promoting connection and wellbeing. Health-related activities encompass mental health counselling, therapeutic support, complex health needs care, and preventative health opportunities for families and communities. Heritage preservation is supported through capital repairs and improvements to historic Christian churches, secular buildings, and community landmarks. The trust also funds core costs, direct outreach, peer support, advocacy, and infrastructure strengthening for voluntary organisations. Geographically, the focus is on the West Midlands (Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, Wolverhampton) and North Wales, including both rural and urban areas.

The trust awards grants to registered charities and community groups, particularly those with longstanding local roots in the West Midlands and North Wales. They prioritise grassroots organisations and heritage projects serving isolated elderly, at-risk youth, families in need of health and carer support, and disabled individuals. The trust welcomes unsolicited applications and favours organisations demonstrating community leadership, lived experience, and multi-generational impact over national or unrelated endeavours.

The trust does not have fixed thematic exclusions but exercises absolute trustee discretion to favour local, grassroots organisations. They do not typically support national charities or projects outside the West Midlands and North Wales, or endeavours unrelated to their priority areas of youth, older people, health, and heritage.

The trust provides flexible, discretionary grants, supporting core costs, project costs, and capital improvements. They fund both direct services and infrastructure strengthening for voluntary organisations. They welcome unsolicited applications and work with a partnership approach, valuing community-led, evidence-based solutions.