Nominations are now open for the 2021 Weston Charity Awards to celebrate and support great charities working in the fields of Community, Welfare and Youth.

The Awards have been created through a partnership between the Garfield Weston Foundation, a family grant-making trust and Pilotlight, a charity that enables other ambitious charities to help a greater number of people more effectively. The Awards offer a package of support intended to deliver long-term benefit to your charity, resulting in an increased ability to help those in need and greater resilience for your organisation.

The Weston Charity Awards would welcome an application from charities that:

• are ambitious
• make a difference to those in need
• are willing to work with the partner, Pilotlight, to strengthen your charity
• would like to develop your work further to help others

The 20 Award Winners will receive:

• a year of support from Pilotlight
• an unrestricted cash contribution of £6,500 to support the work with Pilotlight, this includes travel expenses to meetings
• access to a network of local charities working with Pilotlight
• 2 ‘Connect’ sessions with other Award Winners across the year

Eligibility Criteria

Weston Charity Awards is inviting applications to the Weston Charity Awards from charitable organisations in the North and Midlands regions of England, as well as Wales. You are eligible if you are an ambitious charity working to alleviate disadvantage in one (or more) of the following fields:

• Community (including volunteering work, practical projects to improve the area, running community centres, providing a range of services to the local population and especially those who may be vulnerable or in need)
• Welfare (helping vulnerable individuals, including adults experiencing exclusion, social or economic hardship or homelessness, offenders, providing support for the elderly and disabled)
• Youth (the provision of services to children and young people up to age 25, including advice and guidance, work experience, training and coaching – please note schools are not eligible for the Award)

You will also need to be able to show that your charity:

• has delivered a service for at least two years
• has annual income of less than £5 million
• has at least one full-time paid person in a leadership position
• provides direct services to beneficiaries (not umbrella groups)
• can demonstrate a degree of financial stability, e.g. secured funding for six months
• is willing to travel to Central London for monthly meetings (pending government advice on travel restrictions due to Covid-19)

Organisations in England that have applied in previous years are welcome to apply again if there have been significant changes since your previous application

For more information, visit Weston Charity.