FAQ - Funding

We have no upper or lower funding limit as we like to encourage applicants to be realistic about what they need to achieve their project objectives.  At opposite ends of the spectrum, we have invested in projects lasting 6 months that require £2,500 to deliver, and those seeking in excess of £250,000 over a two-year duration.

If you are looking for funding of over £100,000, your application will be strengthened if you can demonstrate that you have been successful in attracting part match-funding from other organisations.

The majority of projects we invest in are UK-based.  However, we do make a limited amount of investment each year in international projects which align with our areas of focus. If you are a UK-based organisation running an overseas project, we would welcome your application.

We will fund the costs of staff directly involved in delivering a project e.g. project managers, trainers, web developers.  We do not provide funding to cover organisational running costs unconnected to the project.

We will give consideration to funding requests to cover hardware, software or connectivity costs - but only if they are fundamental to successful project delivery.  In this case, any hardware, software or connectivity costs should form only a small percentage of the overall investment, and your applications should provide transparent details on all such costs.  Hardware or infrastructure procurement projects will not be considered.

We don't offer funding for website improvements if no new functional or service delivery innovations are being created.  We will only consider funding website development if the project's objectives are consistent with our areas of focus and the organisation meets our funding guidelines.

Yes. We appreciate that projects vary in length and will consider funding any length of project up to a maximum of three years.

The duration of our investment is agreed on a project-by-project basis.  We place a high value on projects that can demonstrate that they have a sustainability plan that allows them to maintain, or increase, momentum beyond the period of our support.

We hope that all projects will continue to be successful in the years that follow our investment.  Therefore we expect all organisations to identify how their project will become sustainable, if appropriate, beyond the end of our investment period.  We are unlikely to reinvest in a project that we have already supported.

As part of our decision-making process, we will look at whether other funders are already involved in your project, or have been approached.

While match-funding is not a pre-requisite, if you are seeking funding of over £100,000, we recommend that you investigate other sources of revenue funding before submitting your application, as this will strengthen your proposal.

Yes, we will consider an application for a new project, even if you're in receipt of funding for an existing project, as long as it is completely unrelated and looking at a different social challenge.  Please bear in mind that you will need to complete the application process again and we make no guarantee that your application will be successful.

Typically, we do not provide repeat funding for the same project, as we believe in supporting sustainable initiatives.  We expect all our projects to develop a sustainability plan during the period of our investment, so that they can they are able to secure their future.  

Not necessarily.  The level of investment awarded is sometimes different from that requested.  This can be for a number of reasons (beside our own budget constraints).  For example, you may have included items in your budget (e.g. hardware or organisational overheads) that we do not fund, we may think there are opportunities to deliver your project more cost effectively, or we may feel that you could seek match-funding for some of the costs.

Where we feel the amount of investment needs to be reconsidered, one of our team will usually get in touch to discuss your application and review the alternative options available. 

The Intellectual Property (IP) rests AND REMAINS with the applicant for projects supported by Nominet Trust.  THIS INCLUDES IP GENERATED WITH NOMINET TRUST FUNDING. The only restrictions we have around IP are part of our funding agreement and state that projects we support are BOUND not to infringe the copyright or other intellectual property rights of any third party as part of their work.

As a learning organisation, we are not looking for projects that have limited ambitions for the use of digital technology; for example if you are wanting to add digital to existing services in order to make them more efficient or cost-effective, we are not the funder for you.  Instead, we seek social innovation with technology, particularly projects that make imaginative use of technology to re-think a specific social challenge. 

As a result, there are certain types of projects, or project budgetary items that we do not support, such as:

• hardware or software procurement projects; for example a project to equip a school with PCs, buy software licences, or install wi-fi for a community


• website improvements where no new functional or service delivery innovations are created


• website development unless the project and organisation delivers against one of our areas of focus and meets our funding guidelines


• core organisational running costs