Ballinger Charitable Trust
The Ballinger Charitable Trust was founded in 1994 and seeks to support charities, CICs and community groups in North-East England, through grants and funding.
Our Focus
Young People
We award grants to organisations supporting children and young people (aged 0 to 19 / 25 SEN) throughout the North-East, supporting their health, development and well-being.
Priority is given to organisations:
- who are working within a community experiencing disadvantage, and
- who are based in the heart of that community, and
- who have open access, long term, open-ended relationships with their young people
In practice we lean towards organisations delivering general activities (rather than narrower programmes with a specific focus on the arts or sport, for example). Please note that we very rarely support uniformed groups or school-based projects.
We do not have any hard and fast rules about use of grants (other than exclusively charitable purposes). We consider you, the people working in the VCS sector, the experts. Our role is to use our available resources to support your organisation as best we can. We do like to give unrestricted funding – it is easier to administrate for all of us – but we understand restricted funding is a preference on occasions.
Please note, as well as the above priorities, our support of CICs is to those with a credible enterprise model providing a demonstrable income stream, and who have strong, independent governance.
Click on our ‘What We Do’ page to read more about our approach to grant making.
Older People
We work with a range of charitable organisations supporting older people (over 55) in the region, in particular:
- local community groups, with priority given to those based in the more disadvantaged areas, including rural or coastal isolation
- dementia support and advice
- family carers
We are specifically interested in supporting those organisations who are based in the heart of the community they serve, have a real understanding of the needs of their local people and who are focused on developing long-term relationships within their community.
We rely on you to tell us your priorities for grant funding; be it multi-year, core or unrestricted funding, or to support weekly activities for older people – or even a larger grant to showcase a new aspect of dementia support.
We also recognise that many older people’s groups are self managing and volunteer-led, and only require smaller amounts of funding to maintain the activities they do together. We can support such groups and quickly.
Click on our ‘What We Do’ page to read more about our approach to grant making.
Grant Programme
Unrestricted / Core Grant
Complete your application todayYou will receive a copy of your application via email.
Project / Capital Grant
Complete your application todayYou will receive a copy of your application via email.
Funding Map
Applications Received
Quarter 2, 2025No.
of
applications
received
Unrestricted
or
Core
Project
or
Capital
Applications Funded
Quarter 2, 2025No.
of
applications
funded
Unrestricted
or
Core
Project
or
Capital
Showcase
Age UK Gateshead
Age UK Gateshead is an independent local charity, working in the local community to help older people since 1972.
View Project >You Say
Sunderland Bangladesh International Centre