Our grants

Major grants typically range from £5,000 to £100,000 per year. We announce these on our News section of the Homepage. See also Rapid response fund.

Who can apply?

To apply for a grant from SCF, applicants must:

  • be a school, college, or other educational provision in England, and
  • work with young people with autism who are on the roll of a mainstream secondary school or college. For further information please read more about the young people we support.

What projects will we consider?

SCF will consider projects that will help young people with autism access mainstream school.

We fund projects that:

  • help autistic young people fully take part in mainstream activities where statutorily funded support is not enough
  • help autistic young people participate in after-school or outside-college activities or study support
  • help autistic young people attend school through alternative education provision
  • improve autistic young people's mental health and well-being.

We don’t want to replicate support or interventions that are, or should be, statutorily provided. Instead, SCF grants will help those working with autistic young people to set up and run projects that will make a significant difference in conjunction with what is already on offer.

The following are just examples of what SCF may consider funding:

  • the development of spaces or rooms that young people can access during unstructured times and/or structured times
  • activities that support inclusion and engagement in education for young people
  • resources and equipment related to particular young people’s interests to engage them in education
  • educational, psychological or therapeutic assessments and interventions
  • supporting transition between key stages
  • training for staff or work with parents, carers or families as part of a project.

We are looking for innovative, creative solutions.

What SCF will not fund:

To help us make as much impact as we can, we apply very tight criteria to the type of grants that we are able to fund.

We do not fund the following type of activity:

  • grants which will be passed on to other establishments, for example within an academy or health trust
  • requests where a statutory agency (such as a local authority or health service) has assessed a need and has a responsibility to fund but has failed to so
  • projects which promote religion
  • bursaries, sponsored places, fees or equivalent
  • political activity or campaigning
  • individuals (unless an eligible organisation is applying on their behalf)
  • general appeals or endowment funds
  • help with budget shortfalls or debt repayments
  • projects with unspecified expenditure
  • organisational overheads or running costs which the organisation would incur whether the project was running or not — although we will consider funding support costs incurred as a direct result of running the project.