About
The A B Charitable Trust is an independent grant-making organisation that promotes human dignity and defends the human rights of marginalised and excluded people. The Trust operates three grant-making programmes focused on four priority areas: upholding the human rights framework in the UK, ensuring access to justice, reforming the criminal legal system with focus on penal reform, and supporting migrants and refugees. The Trust does not support individuals directly but instead funds partner organisations and initiatives working in these areas.
Funding Opportunities
Migrants and Refugees Grant Programme
The A B Charitable Trust works with organisations that support communities who migrate to the UK, and people who are refugees or seeking asylum. The Trust provides funding to support work that has a clear intent to bring about change and have an impact on the most marginalised and excluded communities facing intersecting disadvantages. This includes work addressing destitution through provision of accommodation support, trafficking and exploitation, support for people held in immigration detention, and for groups facing discrimination for protected characteristics including racialised groups. The Trust supports a wide range of work including delivering services, policy advocacy and influencing, campaigning, narrative change work, and community organising. They are particularly interested in the use of the law as a tool for social change to address injustices at individual and systemic levels. The Trust usually provides unrestricted funding to registered UK charities with annual income between £150k and £1.5m that have been operating for at least a year.
The Criminal Legal System and Penal Reform
The A B Charitable Trust provides funding to UK registered charities working to support individuals and communities in contact with the criminal legal system or at imminent risk of coming into contact, particularly those focused on harm prevention. The Trust seeks to fund work that has a clear intent to bring about change and puts equity at the centre, with impact on the most marginalised and excluded communities facing intersecting disadvantages, particularly racialised communities. This includes organisations supporting individuals and their families at any stage of the criminal legal system, from prevention to police to courts and prison, as well as upon release. The Trust supports organisations working with those on the sharpest end of sentencing, including joint enterprise and IPP, and those subject to state injustice such as miscarriages of justice or deaths in custody. The funding supports a wide range of work including delivering services, policy advocacy and influencing, campaigning, narrative change work, and community organising. The Trust is interested in the use of law as a tool for social change to address injustices at individual and systemic levels. Typically unrestricted funding is provided to eligible organizations with annual incomes between £150k and £1.5m.
Access to Justice
The A B Charitable Trust provides funding to UK charities working in the area of access to justice and human rights. The Trust works with organisations that provide specialist legal advice and representation, defined as relating to the resolution of legal problems where advice is tailored to individual circumstances, typically including end-to-end casework through to representation. The Trust particularly focuses on organisations that are experts in a particular area of law and those that provide specialist advice to the most marginalised groups. ABCT also funds organisations which carry out more systemic work, supporting campaigning, policy, narrative change, and strategic legal action that focuses on defending and improving the system in which people can obtain justice and strengthening the rule of law. This includes supporting an independent judiciary, a robust legal profession, and practical and effective access to the courts. The Trust provides grants primarily on an unrestricted basis to UK registered charities with annual incomes between £150,000 and £1.5 million. Eligible organisations must have been operating for at least a year with full audited or independently examined accounts. Grant amounts in 2024/25 ranged from £20,000 to £30,000 per annum, with an average grant of £27,059. The Grants Committee meets four times per year to assess applications, with decisions typically made within 3 months of application deadlines. The Trust considers a range of factors including the organisation as a whole, its approach, operations, and the activities being delivered.
Strategic Human Rights Framework Grant
The A B Charitable Trust supports UK registered charities working to protect the human rights framework in the UK. The Trust provides funding for organizations engaged in campaigning, advocacy and influencing, legal work, and narrative change that covers the human rights framework as a whole. This includes work focused on human rights legislation and application in the UK, legal representation and litigation for victims of human rights abuses, and supporting individuals, communities and statutory bodies to understand their human rights. The funding primarily supports the rights contained in principal international human rights instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN conventions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights. The Trust typically provides unrestricted funding to organizations with annual incomes between £150k and £1.5m that have operated for at least a year. Applications are considered quarterly by the Grants Committee. The Trust does not support single issue or single right campaigning, or human rights work focused on particular groups or communities. By exception, the Trust also supports organizations that foster an enabling environment for human rights, though this represents a small proportion of grants.
At a Glance
- Total Funding Opportunities
- 4
- Active Now
- 4
- Source Domain
- abcharitabletrust.org.uk
Catalog Data
This funder profile was automatically extracted from grant listings. Information may be incomplete.
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