People working for local community projects can now apply for funding from Gatwick Airport’s Foundation Fund, which was relaunched last week.

Grants are now available for projects that support local children and young people, improve health and wellbeing, tackle social isolation and disadvantage, or raise aspirations and employment opportunities.

The grant criteria purposely align with priority areas that many local authorities currently focus on and are designed to:

• Build better communities by fighting social isolation and tackling disadvantage
• Enable social mobility by raising aspirations and improving skills
• Improve health (physical and mental) and wellbeing
• Make a difference to the lives of disadvantaged children and young people

A total of £300,000 in grants is distributed each year, with projects in Sussex, Surrey and Kent receiving £100,000 each in three rounds of funding. The Fund was however suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Fund is designed to distribute the economic benefits that the airport generates among local people and communities that may not benefit directly from other economic contributions the airport brings to the region.

Gatwick’s Foundation Fund was ordinally launched in late 2016 and – to date – a total of £1.2 million has been distributed through Sussex, Surrey and Kent Community Foundations in 236 grants, benefiting over 100,000 people.

Melanie Wrightson, Stakeholder Engagement Manager, Gatwick Airport said: 

“We feel tremendously proud to be back in a position where we can offer grants to so many worthwhile community projects across our region. The work these community groups do is invaluable to some local residents and we welcome applications from all projects that meet the wide-ranging criteria.”

How to apply

Sussex Community Foundations manages the programme and assess all applications in our county. To apply to the Gatwick Foundation Fund, please visit the Fund page.

Other sources of funding 

Two further sources of airport-related funding are also available for local community projects (not through Sussex Community Foundation). The next round of Gatwick Airport Community Trust’s grant programme opens in December 2022 for projects in Sussex, Surrey and Kent. Charities dedicated to improving access to employment, training, housing, mobility, or leisure for society’s most disadvantaged will also be invited to apply to the VINCI UK Foundation for grants in January 2023.