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Finding funding for UK aid organisations

This article signposts potential sources of financial support for UK aid organisations. Each scheme will have its own eligibility criteria and closing dates.

The Commons Library briefing, UK aid: Reducing spending to 0.3% of GNI by 2027/28, provides contextual information on trends in funding for UK aid.

This page will no longer be updated. 

UK Government funding opportunities

The UK Government publishes upcoming procurement and supply opportunities online and via social media:

• Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), International development funding. Provides an overview of funding opportunities across all government departments. This can be filtered by country, funding value, aid sector and eligibility.
• FCDO, Procurement at the FCDO and Commercial pipeline. Opportunities are sometimes shared through its Twitter account @FCDOProcurement. Suppliers can register to use the portal.

Specific UK Government schemes

• Country-specific funding: The NGO Bond advises organisations to contact FCDO country offices, who can be responsible for distributing some funding. See GOV.UK “Help and services around the world,” for a list.

Not currently providing support:

• UK aid match. Provided grants to civil society organisations for poverty reduction in certain countries. For selected organisations, the UK Government matches £1 of UK aid for every £1 donated to a UK aid match charity appeal by an individual living in the UK, up to a value of £2 million.

UK Aid Direct, which provided support for small and medium size organisations from 2014, permanently closed in October 2023.

Funding databases

There are several search engines for finding available grants for aid work:

• Bond, Upcoming funding opportunities. Brings together grant opportunities from charitable, government and other sources (including those outside the UK). It is regularly updated.
• Grantfinder. This is an online service provided through a House of Commons Library subscription and gives access to a searchable and updated database of UK funding sources. It can be accessed via the resources for casework page (Parliamentary login required).
• Development Aid, Tenders, and Grants (subscription required). Offers a searchable database of worldwide funding opportunities for aid organisations.
• The Charity Commission’s charity search tool can be used to find charities which provide funding to other charities (choose the advanced search function for more options). This is limited to charities registered in England and Wales.

Further sources of information

The NGO Bond have published a series of guides on funding, fundraising, and diversifying income sources for development organisations.

The Commons Library’s Finding funding for charities and voluntary organisations discusses some of the funding options and sources of advice available to charities and voluntary organisations in the UK.