Squires Foundation

The Squires Foundation is a family-led charitable trust established in 1989 by John Squires and Stephen Raymond Squires (originally as The Benfield Motors Charitable Trust, renamed in 2015), with five Squires family members as trustees. Rooted in North East England, its mission centers on advancing social welfare through relieving hardship, distress, and need among vulnerable groups, with strong emphasis on community development, support for children, young people, the elderly, local hospitals, hospices, and Christian activities. Its values prioritize local investment, tangible quality-of-life improvements, and hands-on philanthropy driven by family discretion, longstanding relationships, and responsiveness to regional needs, maintaining a low public profile without an official website.

The foundation funds frontline services addressing social exclusion, healthcare, end-of-life care, and community initiatives for disadvantaged locals, including project work, core operational costs, and occasional capital projects. Grants support small to medium-sized organizations delivering direct benefits, such as youth programs, elderly care, and hardship relief, often as one-off or recurrent awards to grassroots efforts rather than national causes.

Eligible applicants are strictly UK-registered charities or community groups with a strong presence in Tyneside and Northumberland; it prefers organizations with annual incomes below £1 million. Unsolicited applications are not accepted—trustees invite proposals based on local knowledge and alignments. Typical grants range from £1,000 to £10,000 (mostly under £5,000, occasionally up to £25,000), with ad hoc trustee meetings and no fixed deadlines or formal process.

Distinctively relational and regionally loyal, it rarely funds non-local or large national bodies, focusing exclusively on embedded, impactful local work to foster inclusion and welfare without speculative applications or publicized rounds.