By Vedat Mizrahi, Co-founder · 30 June 2026

Heading into July 2026: the UK charity grants we re-verified open this week

The turn of a month is when funding directories drift furthest from reality. A summer window quietly closes, a "rolling" fund pauses for the season, a new round opens with little fanfare, and the national listings take weeks to catch up. I'm Vedat Mizrahi, co-founder of GrantNest. Over the past week (27–30 June 2026) we re-checked a set of major UK funders on their own websites, one programme at a time. Here is what is genuinely open going into July, what only looks open, and the one large deadline worth putting in your diary now.

1. Foundation Scotland: several funds open, but check which one

Foundation Scotland is not a single grant, it's a portal hosting many funds, which is exactly why it's easy to get wrong: some are open, some are closed, and the umbrella listing rarely says which. Re-checked on the funder's own pages on 30 June, these were open to applications now:

• Essentia Foundation: open, with grants of around £80,000 available.
• Baillie Gifford International Fund: open, around £55,632 across roughly 11 grants in 2026.

What's not open here matters just as much: the Volant Large grants are closed and, on the funder's own entry, re-open in July 2026, while Volant Small grants closed at the end of May. If you saw "Volant" tagged as open in a directory recently, that's the kind of stale listing we exist to catch.

2. The Robertson Trust: four programmes open for Scottish charities

Re-verified at source this week, the Robertson Trust has four programmes accepting applications, each with a live "Apply now" route: Wee Grants, Community Spaces, Small Grants, and Big Change That Lasts. Two programmes remain paused and are correctly not taking applications right now: the Large Grants and the Transport programme. For more on the Scottish picture, see our funding for Scottish charities piece.

3. Paul Hamlyn Foundation: three rolling funds open, three not

The Paul Hamlyn Foundation runs several funds and the difference between them is the whole story. Re-checked on PHF's own funding pages, three are open and rolling (no deadline, apply when ready): the Migration Fund, the Youth Fund (for work with 14–25s), and the Arts-based Learning Fund. Three other PHF funds are not currently accepting applications, and are correctly closed: the Arts Fund, Teacher Development Fund, and Ideas and Pioneers Fund. "Paul Hamlyn is open" is true and false at the same time, depending on which fund you mean.

4. Trust for London: open, but the open list has narrowed

Trust for London accepts applications on a rolling basis with no deadlines under its Economic Justice priorities, and that route is open. But the set of priorities you can actually apply under has narrowed since earlier in June: disability justice is now closed to applications until 2026, and migrant destitution work remains paused. The funder is open; whether your work is fundable there depends on which priority it sits under, so read the current list before you start. We covered Trust for London's shift toward systems-change funding in our four big funders re-checked piece.

5. National Lottery Heritage Fund: rolling now, one deadline for the bigger grants

For anything with a heritage angle, the National Lottery Heritage Fund's main grant route (£10,000 to £250,000) is open on a rolling basis, re-verified at source. The larger band (£250,000 to £10m) is different: it runs to a fixed deadline, and the next one is 12 noon on 6 August 2026. That's the date to diary if you're planning a major capital or multi-year heritage project, large bids take weeks to assemble, so a 6 August deadline means starting now.

6. Community foundations: dozens of small local funds, re-checked

Community foundations are the quiet workhorses of UK grant-giving, each distributing many small, local funds. This week we re-verified three as genuinely open and live: Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland (North East), Quartet Community Foundation (Bristol and the West of England), and the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland's Randal Small Grant. If you're a small local group, your nearest community foundation is often a better first stop than a national funder, and the list of what's live there changes constantly.

The point: "rolling" is not the same as "always open"

Almost every funder above proves the same thing. A name in a directory tells you nothing on its own: Foundation Scotland and Paul Hamlyn each have funds open and closed at the same moment; Trust for London is open but for fewer kinds of work than a fortnight ago; the Heritage Fund is rolling for small grants but deadline-driven for big ones. The only reliable answer is the funder's own page, on the day you apply.

That's what every entry on our open-grants list carries: a plain-English status and a last-checked date, verified on the funder's own site rather than copied from last year's listing. If you'd like the new open calls that fit your charity sent to you each Friday, the free weekly email below is the simplest way to stay current as the funding picture shifts through the summer.