THE DREAM FUND
The Dream Fund was created to encourage charities to collaborate and apply for their dream project. One award of £5,000,000 will be granted to a single transformational and groundbreaking project.
The Dream Fund supports charities to develop innovative solutions to society’s most challenging problems. Applications that score highly in their originality, ambition and collaborative nature stand the highest chances of being successful.
FUNDING CRITERIA
Applicants are encouraged to be ambitious and creative in developing their project ideas. Please contact the Dream Fund team to discuss your project ideas and receive feedback.
The Dream Fund is a single award fund of £5 million to support a ‘dream’ project in one or more areas in Great Britain.
Charities can apply to deliver a project that spans from 1 to 5 years in length.
The Dream Fund encourages collaboration. Applications must be from two to four organisations.
The lead partner must be a registered charity i.e. they must be formally registered with the Charity Commission or OSCR.
Project partners can be charities, universities, companies, local authorities other not-for- profit organisations or research institutes.
Applicants can apply more than once, either as a lead or a partner organization, up to a maximum of twice.
All applications must reserve at least 5% of the budget for comms and PR activity to maximize promotion of the project.
The lead partner must have an annual income that is at least £5 million. It is not possible to combine the incomes of the partners to reach the income threshold.
Applications must be innovative, creative and original, and present projects that are a genuine ‘dream’.
FUNDING PRIORITIES
The Dream Fund is looking for large, innovative, systems changing, transformational projects – you can find some examples of previously funded projects on our website.
We welcome projects focused on the funding themes of the nine UK focused Postcode Trusts. These can include health, wellbeing, families, children, environmental conservation, biodiversity, wildlife and animals, culture and heritage and others.
What is critical is that the project ideas can deliver exceptionally strong impact and are pushing boundaries in terms of their innovation, rather than rigidly matching a pre-existing theme.
All great project ideas begin with understanding a clear problem and then using the skills, experience and resources of the project partners to craft a unique solution.
If you have an idea for a project, feel free to contact the Dream Fund team. You can reach them at info@postcodedreamfund.org.uk.
If your Dream Fund project idea is ready to go then you can submit a expression of interest via the online form.
Also, feel free to forward on these guidance notes to relevant persons with your organisation. These could include innovation teams, operational teams or anyone else who can provide you with a world-beating project idea.
Dream Fund Guidance Notes
Some of our funded organisations
