The Charity is a grant making Charity that provides relief to people who are long term residents of the City of Birmingham.

No, the Charity does not give hardship grants to individuals. The Charity gives educational grants to individuals under the age of 25 to help with educational expenses such as living expenses, travel expenses, books or laptops needed for study.

Application forms can be downloaded from the following pages: Educational Grants Application Form and General Grants Application Form

Applications are accepted by post or email.

General grant meetings are held in January, April, July and October. The deadline would be the last day of the prior month. So for example, the deadline for January is 31 December. Education grants meetings are held in March, September and December. The deadline would be the last day of the prior month. So for example, the deadline for March is 28 February.

The secretary or administrator can be contacted on 0121 227 3705 from 9.15am – 5.15pm Monday to Friday or by email georgefentham@vwv.co.uk(mailto:georgefentham@vwv.co.uk)

You will normally find out if your application has been successful 1-2 weeks after the Trustees meet.

The Trustees meet regularly throughout the year to allocate both the educational grants and the general grants. Meetings for educational grants usually take place in September, December, and April of each year. Meetings for general grants usually take place throughout the year.

The Trustees will only allocate one grant to an individual (educational grant) or organisation (general grant) per calendar year. Individuals and organisations can apply each year to the Charity.

The Trustees consider an individual who has been resident in the City of Birmingham for more than 3 years (not just for the purposes of tertiary education) to be a long term resident of the City.

Applications are accepted from National Charities – to be successful the grant provided must be solely for the use and benefit of individuals residing in the City of Birmingham. The onus is on the organisation applying to satisfy the Trustees with regard to this.

See our Area of benefit map.

The Trustees will consider funding either of the above. If the application relates to an existing project the Trustees will require clarification as to where the funding prior to the application has come from.

The Trustees allocate grants to charities registered with the Charity Commission of England and Wales, but do also make grants to charities that are not required to register with the Charity Commission. Applications by non-charitable organisations will not be considered.

The Charity does not operate an appeals process. If your application is turned down this will most likely be because you are not eligible under the terms of the Scheme of the Charity or that there are insufficient resources available to meet all grant applications.