Earls Court Community Fund 2025

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Applications are now closed

 

We are working to manage The Earls Court Development Company’s grants programme, with support from the Kensington + Chelsea Foundation.

To review the full guidelines and application process please click here.

The total value of the Earls Court Community Fund is £180,000 per year. Organisations can apply for a grant of up to £15,000 for projects taking place for up to 12 months.

To note: the average grant awarded in 2024 was £9,000 with awards ranging between £2,000-£15,000.

How to apply

This year, there will be a two-stage application process – a First Stage Application Form asking for details of your project followed by a full application that will ask for more details on your organisation, your project and its expected impact for short-listed organisations.

The deadline for First Stage applications was Wednesday 30th April 2025 at midday.

Who can apply?

To be eligible to apply to the Community Fund, organisations must meet the following points:

  • Be delivering activities that take place within the Earls Court Opportunity Area, or be able to demonstrate that the majority of the beneficiaries live, work or study in the Area
  • Be a not-for-profit organisation that is formally constituted (have a signed governing document in the organisation’s name and three unrelated trustees/directors). This includes unincorporated associations and community groups, registered charities, schools, Community Interest Companies (CIC) that are limited by guarantee, Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIO), companies limited by guarantee and faith groups where the project clearly does not promote a particular religious or political view.
  • Have met all filing and reporting requirements with the Charity Commission and/or Companies House. If your group is not required to do this, we will ask to see an alternative, for example your most recent annual accounts or management accounts from the last financial year. Applications from organisations that have a financial deficit will not be considered.
  • Have a bank account set up in the organisation’s name, with at least two unrelated cheque signatories
  • Be up to date with all reporting requirements for previous Earls Court Development Fund grants (if applicable)
  • Have in place (where required), and be able to provide if requested, the following: Health + Safety policy, Safeguarding Adults + Children policies, Equality + Diversity policy, Employers’ Liability Insurance, Professional Indemnity Insurance and Risk Assessment Log

 

To review the full guidelines and application process please click here.

If you have any questions, or would like to discuss your application before applying, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Hammersmith & Fulham Giving at [email protected].

 

More about The Earls Court Community Fund

The Earls Court Community Fund was established by The Earls Court Development Company, who are responsible for driving forward the development of the Earls Court site. The aim of the Fund is to deliver greater social impact for local residents and for local people to be engaged in the process. In its first four years, £720,000 has been granted to 37 local organisations. Read more on projects supported through the Earls Court Community Fund.

The Fund aims to support the local community in and around the Earls Court site, in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham. It will focus on offering grants to organisations that support the community in and around the Earls Court site, to deliver projects and provide longer term support for the community. This year Hammersmith & Fulham Giving are managing the grants programme on behalf of The Earls Court Development Company, with support from the Kensington + Chelsea Foundation .

 

Applications are now closed

Winter Support Fund 24/25 Grantees

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In December 2024, in partnership with H&F council we launched the Winter Support Fund 2024/25. Awarding grants to community organisations, this localised community offer directly supports residents needing immediate help or experiencing financial hardship, and at the same time helps strengthen communities.

The £213,000 Winter Support Fund was administered by H&F Giving on behalf of H&F Council. Our intention was to fund local Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations to support households, including older residents, in Hammersmith & Fulham which otherwise might face crisis and to provide them with food, fuel and support for other essential living costs. We, along with the community organisations we support in Hammersmith & Fulham are very grateful to H&F Council who, due to the quality of applications and size of demand, were able to increase the size of the funding pot in response.

In January 2025, a panel selected 28 organisations to award (a big thank you to our incredible panel!). We are happy to share the successful grantees below:

Active Successful Engagement (ASÉ) CIC
£10,000 awarded to provide groceries, food vouchers, utility payments and essential items as part of their mission to reduce inequalities, combat poverty, and address worklessness, striving to transform lives and empower communities.

Age UK Hammersmith & Fulham
£5,448 awarded to fund the chef who provides a heavily subsidised hot meal every weekday at their Activity Centre to support older people to thrive in later life.

Barons Court Project
£8,000 awarded to provide food, a chef, winter clothing, phone top-ups and utility vouchers to support people are homeless, on low income and/or living with long-term mental health conditions.

Dad’s House
£8,000 awarded to provide food, utilities and winter essentials to support single mums and dads, their children and families who are struggling to cope.

Flow Happy CIC
£10,000 awarded to provide period product parcels to 200 households and educational materials to engage the community.

Fulham Good Neighbours
£10,000 awarded to provide lunch, subsidised meals, food vouchers, utilities and extra warm thermal tops to older people and people with illnesses and disabilities.

Hammersmith and Fulham Foodbank
£7,541 awarded to provide fuel bill support, electric radiator heaters and basic cooking equipment to address the prevention or relief of poverty in H&F.

Kulan Foundation
£10,000 awarded to provide food vouchers and to cover heating, energy and water bills, supporting ethnic minorities.

Lets Unite for Autism
£6,400 awarded to provide food, utilities and winter essentials to support those on the autism spectrum and their families.

Living with Equal Opportunities (LEO’s)
£7,680 awarded to provide food vouchers and help with energy bills for vulnerable young people with disabilities and their families.

Lunch Club + 4 The Blind
£2,000 awarded to provide food, cover heating bills and transport for those who are blind, partially sighted and/or have a disability.

Minaret Community Centre
£7,984 awarded to provide food vouchers, utilities, a project coordinator and volunteer expenses in able to provide family support, isolated individuals and East & North African communities.

Mother and Child Welfare Organisation
£8,000 awarded to provide cultural food parcels, utility bill payments, budgeting advice, emotional support and help with applying for benefits to families, women and children living in poverty.

Nourish Hub, UKHarvest
£8,000 awarded to provide ‘Meal Deal Vouchers’, a three-course meal to residents at their Community Lunch in order to tackle social isolation and food insecurity.

Our Lady of Fatima Church
£9,750 awarded to provide fresh food for the food hub, food and fuel vouchers and households items to alleviate food poverty in W12.

People Arise Now
£10,000 to provide food parcels, white goods and energy top ups to struggling families and individuals, including young people who may be impacted by crime.

River House Trust
£1,760 awarded to provide foodbank supplies and 100 free lunches to help make a better life for people with HIV, particularly as they move into older age.

Sands End Arts & Community Centre
£7,360 awarded to provide weekly free hot meals, food vouchers and on-site advice sessions with art activities and essentials to those living with disabilities, learning disabilities, mental health issues, those facing economic instability, homelessness and older adults.

SEAPIA
£10,000 awarded to provide food vouchers to families, older and isolated residents and self-care packages to young people.

Shepherds Bush Families Project
£7,040 awarded to provide food vouchers, cash donations, utility bill cover, essentials and white goods to economically disadvantaged families coping with housing stress.

Solidarity Sports
£10,000 awarded to provide supermarket vouchers and school uniforms to support families and disadvantaged children and young people.

Somali Parents CIC
£4,000 awarded to provide food, utility bill payments and winter essentials to Somali families and other vulnerable groups struggling with financial difficulties.

St Paul’s Money Advice Centre
£8,000 awarded to provide Tesco vouchers to almost 200 households who are suffering poverty, whilst supporting residents to reduce debt-poverty.

Sudanese Association
£8,000 awarded to provide food and groceries, utility bill payments and winter clothing, bedding and heaters to reduce poverty and social exclusion among Sudanese and ethnic minority communities.

The Creighton Centre
£8,000 awarded to provide food vouchers, utility vouchers and essentials such as fridges and heated throws to support disadvantaged people with who have a learning disability or socially isolated older people.

The Violence Intervention Project
£4,100 awarded to provide food drops, support with bills and warm clothes & essentials to young people and their families.

Women Aid and Empowerment CIC
£8,000 awarded to provide cookery demonstration and community meals and shopping vouchers to BAME, low income women and young people.

Urban Flyers C.I.C.
£7,999 awarded to provide food during half term tech camps, after school tech provisions and the E Cycle Café in order to help children and young people have access to STEM.

We hope to share photos and case studies soon, so please keep an eye on our website, social media or sign up to our newsletter below.

 

*with funding provided by Department of Work & Pensions.

382 older residents enjoy Christmas Day together

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At H&F Giving, we believe that no one should feel alone during the festive season. That’s why on December 25th, with our friends at Hammersmith & Fulham Council, we brought together 382 older and isolated residents of Hammersmith and Fulham for a heart-warming Christmas Day celebration filled with joy, connection and community spirit.

Our guests, who otherwise would have been on their own, enjoyed a delicious Christmas lunch with all the trimmings. Christmas crackers were pulled, bad jokes were told and there was some incredible dancing.  All our older neighbours got a gift bag to take home and transport was provided for those that needed it. 90 volunteers gave their time on the day and helped pack the goody bags ensuring a fun filled day for all.

Our guests had a brilliant day, with one resident from Sycamore House, an alms-house run by Hammersmith United Charities (HUC) for low-income older residents, explaining how much H&F’s Big Christmas Day Lunch means to them: “The highlight of my year when the community comes together to give everyone a day to remember and it means so much to me and to so many! I have such huge admiration to the organisers and volunteers who take time out from their Christmas Day to give us folk a day to remember and I thank everyone involved so much for the kindness that you show us each and every year!”

Louise Wilson, Executive Director at H&G Giving, said: “This really is a wonderful event, to see almost 400 of our neighbours laughing, enjoying themselves and truly celebrating Christmas is what it’s all about. I know for a fact that without this event, our guests would spend the day alone and that’s just not Christmas. This is what community is all about – coming together to celebrate the good and the joy. But we couldn’t have done it alone. We are so grateful for all the donations that made this special event happen. We are also incredibly grateful to our sponsors whose generosity made this all possible.” 

Your support made this happen – thank you.

In total, our community raised over £58,000 together to ensure this incredible event happened. Any excess funds raised will go towards engagement activities for older and vulnerable residents in the borough throughout 2025.

Hundreds of local people contributed to the lunch appeal by making donations via our crowdfunding campaign on our website, via bank transfer and at local events – raising £15,000 together.

Local businesses and foundations made invaluable contributions totalling over £40,000 – an incredible achievement.

A huge thank you to The Hurlingham Club Foundation for being our headline supporter this year. Their support helped drive local generosity and they also hosted a lovely soft-launch of our Christmas Campaign in the summer that welcomed many of our older neighbours to their grounds for a talk from their head gardener.

 

We would also like to thank the host of other key sponsors, donors and supporters who came together to ensure hundreds of our older neighbours in Hammersmith & Fulham were not alone:

  • The Calleva Foundation
  • Dr Edwards and Bishop King’s Fulham Charity
  • Olympia: who sponsored the entertainment including another great performance from Vivid Jazz who got everyone up for a post-dinner dance
  • Earls Court Development Company: who sponsored our goody bags for a second year so our older residents had an extra special gift to take home this Christmas.
  • Julia Rausing Trust
  • Friends of Brook Green: who sponsored a table of our older residents to have lunch together
  • Saint Paul’s Hammersmith
  • Hammersmith BID
  • Shoots & Leaves
  • Blueprint Partners: whose fantastic team made our Christmas promo videos pro bono
  • Novotel London West: who were incredible hosts again this year and sponsored the turkeys

                  

 

We also want to take this opportunity to thank H&F Giving’s core funders which this year include City Bridge Foundation, NEC Software Solutions and West London Chamber of Commerce, along with our founding partners, DEBK and HUC. Their unrestricted support is integral in enabling us to deliver impactful projects such as our Christmas Campaign.

A huge thank you again to everyone who volunteered or donated to make this event happen, as well as the Events Team at Hammersmith & Fulham Council for all their hard work in making the day such a success. Because of the generosity of our local community, 382 residents weren’t alone this Christmas.

Want to get involved in the Big Christmas Lunch 2025?

If you or your business would like to sponsor or get involved in this year’s event, please reach out to us at [email protected]. We look forward to seeing you there!

Find all 2024 photos here.

As we can’t thank those that support this incredible event enough, we also asked some of our previous guests to send a special thank you too:

Winter Support Fund 2024-25

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APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED

We are delighted to launch the Winter Support Fund 2024/25 awarding grants to community organisations which support those most in need in the local community. This will be through direct support to residents needing immediate support or experiencing financial hardship.

The £180,000 Winter Support Fund is being administered by H&F Giving on behalf of H&F Council. We want to distribute £180,000 to local Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations to support households, including older residents, in Hammersmith & Fulham which otherwise might face crisis and to provide them with food, fuel and support for other essential living costs.

Click here to apply and learn more about the funding available: Winter Support Fund – An online application process for local groups.

Deadline is Tuesday 7 January, midday so don’t miss out! Any questions, please reach out to [email protected].

Café Bridge

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Join H&F Giving, in partnership with Andrew Robson Bridge Club, for a delightful day of duplicate bridge, playing hands across a selection of cafés & restaurants. Enjoy lunch and warm hospitality from fellow players and the venues on Parsons Green, whilst raising funds for H&F Giving to support the local community in Hammersmith & Fulham to thrive – suitable for all levels of players.

Event Dates and details:

  • Date: TBC – email today to find out more and pre-register
  • Time: 10:30 AM to 5:00 PM (Exact timing TBC)
  • Location: Multiple charming venues across Parsons Green, Fulham
  • Fee: £35-50 per person / £70-100 per pair including lunch

For more information or to register, email us at [email protected].

What is Café Bridge? 

Café bridge is a duplicate pairs bridge game set up over multiple cafés and restaurants. Pairs move to a new venue after each round, guided by a movement card or roadbook, while board sets remain on their starting tables throughout. The registration fee includes lunch at one of the venues and it is a very sociable way to play bridge, while supporting local charities. It is for all levels of bridge players, from beginners to those who are much more experienced.

Why Participate?

Your involvement will directly support H&F Giving’s efforts to empower our local community in Hammersmith & Fulham. Our projects aid the elderly, support families affected by the cost-of-living crisis, assist refugees, help vulnerable children, and much more. This event is not just about playing bridge; it’s about making a tangible difference.

We would love for you to join us.

Please register today to secure your spot. For more information or to register, email us at [email protected].

The Earls Court Community Fund 2024

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We are working in partnership with The Kensington + Chelsea Foundation to manage The Earls Court Development Company’s grants programme.

*Applications now closed*

To find out who was awarded funding for 2024, please click here.

More about The Earls Court Community Fund

The Earls Court Community Fund was established by The Earls Court Development Company, who are responsible for driving forward the development of the Earls Court site. The aim of the Fund is to deliver greater social impact for local residents and for local people to be engaged in the process. In its first three years, £540,000 has been granted to 31 local organisations. Read more on projects supported through the Earls Court Community Fund.

The Fund aims to support the local community in and around the Earls Court site, in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. It will focus on offering grants to charities and community organisations that support the community in and around the Earls Court site, to deliver projects and to ensure local groups can continue to provide longer term support for the community. This year Hammersmith & Fulham Giving and the Kensington + Chelsea Foundation are managing the grants programme on behalf of The Earls Court Development Company.

Winter Support Fund – An Update

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At the end of 2023, H&F Giving were delighted to launch the Winter Support Fund small grants scheme, awarding grants to community organisations which support those most in need in our local community – we are administering the Winter Support Fund on behalf of H&F Council.

We are delighted to report that 35 community organisations received £340,000 of Winter Support Funding in early January to provide direct support to residents facing crisis and poverty this winter.

After a huge and quality response in the call for applications, H&F Council kindly increased the funding available from an original £200,000 pot to £340,000, meaning we were able to support more community organisations and households in the borough as part of this programme. Our community panel worked together to assess applications and ensure an even split of provision geographically and demographically across the borough through a variety of local Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations delivering projects to support households in Hammersmith & Fulham with food, fuel and support for other essential living costs.

Louise Wilson – Executive Director of H&F Giving said: “We are delighted to administer the Winter Support Fund on behalf of H&F Council at a time when support is needed more than ever. Demand far outstripped supply for the fund with the call for applications seeing a both large and quality response. Although it was not possible to fund everything, we were delighted the Council were able to unlock more funding at the end of year to support the vital work our community organisations are doing to support residents facing crisis and poverty this winter – thank you. We know this funding has come at a critical time for many and is going to have a huge impact in supporting our local community through the winter period.”

We look forward to sharing stories of this impact in the coming weeks and months. Make sure you are signed up to our newsletter and keep an eye on our socials for updates – information on future grant rounds will also be shared via these channels.

As an organisation, we are continuing to work hard to unlock funding to further support community organisations in the borough. If you would like to have a conversation about how you or your business can help, please contact [email protected]. You can also donate to H&F Giving here.