The categories below are all supported but the primary objective of the activities, services or project must be to improve the well-being of economically and socially disadvantaged West Yorkshire people. We want to support organisations that are committed to ensuring a safe culture for its staff, volunteers and beneficiaries.

We give to:

  • Children and young people
  • Churches providing local community outreach support to their economically and socially disadvantaged residents, but activities must be open to all and not promoting religion
  • Community centres and village halls in disadvantaged areas
  • Countryside, environment and green issues involving people in local disadvantaged communities
  • Food provision projects – food pantry, food education/cookery skills and ‘pay as you feel’ cafe models preferred
  • LGBTQ+ communities
  • Mental well-being
  • Music, the arts and heritage involving people in local disadvantaged communities
  • Older people
  • People with physical and learning disabilities
  • Social welfare
  • Sports for disadvantaged communities

We don’t give to:

  • Voluntary and community groups which are not a registered charity and do not have a Charity Commission number
  • CICs/Social enterprises
  • Charities that have over a £1m income (based on the last year’s annual accounts)
  • National charities or charities which don’t have their head office in West Yorkshire
  • Appeals that are not focused on West Yorkshire
  • Appeals from individuals seeking grants
  • Applications from overseas
  • Overseas seminars or exchange visits by individuals or groups
  • Medical appeals of a capital or revenue nature
  • Medical research projects
  • Playgroups, nurseries and pre-schools
  • Restoration schemes for churches such as church roofs and spires
  • Schools

We have adopted the above guidelines which follow this broad basis and will, in general, follow these guidelines, although in exceptional circumstances the trustees may deviate from them if a particular cause is of special merit.

For further details on the Sir George Martin Trust please review our latest Annual Accounts FINAL signed accounts 2023-24 – Sir George Martin Trust and our FINAL 2023-24 SGMT Impact Report for an analysis of our grant making during this period.

The Sir George Martin Trust has signed up to IVAR’s eight commitments to adopt more Open & Trusting practices that make life easier for grant seekers and those we fund.

LS-TENwww.ls-ten.org

LS-TEN is the largest indoor skate park in Leeds and houses a small independent school that specialises in supporting young people with Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs, as well as running a vast range of youth clubs and lessons in skateboarding, roller skating and BMX. The charity said: “It is hard to measure the incredible difference this project has made to our organisation. The £3,500 grant allowed us to take two cohorts of young people to different skate parks and give them a brand new skateboard...We were able to have discussions with them about skateboarding careers and how you can make a career out of something they love.”

Out Togetherwww.outtogether.lgbt

Aiming to help more LGBTQ+ seniors keep well, have fun and stay connected, this charity had a number of successful groups in Leeds but could see the need to branch out wider and required funding to make this happen. A £3,000 grant from the Trust gave Out Together the boost it needed to do more marketing and start to establish the project across West Yorkshire, providing vital support networks to combat social exclusion, depression and poor mental and physical mental health in older age.

St Stephen’s Church, Bradfordwww.shinewestbowling.org.uk

St Stephen’s Church has been serving the diverse community of West Bowling in Bradford for over 160 years, most recently joining with Shine (West Bowling) in providing services such as a Pop-Up Pantry, advice on budgeting and benefits, parenting support and a variety of services to help with physical and mental health. The Sir George Martin Trust aims to be as flexible as possible with its core cost and capital funding, providing support where it is needed most, especially for 'hard to fund projects'. The Trust gave St. Stephen’s £3,000 to complete a much needed new toilet block within the church.

Mindful Movershttps://tinyurl.com/2s3tcxsb

A relatively new charity, Wakefield-based Mindful Movers holds weekly walks and outdoor craft sessions to help improve local people's mental health and well being. Founder, Rachel Hale said: “We were at a pivotal transition point with scope for enhanced service provision, increased capacity and ultimately providing more opportunities for our existing and new group members. The Sir George Martin Trust awarded us £5,000 which paid for dedicated staff time and new accounting software which were both vital to the growth and development of the charity and our service offer.”

Rainbow Baby Bankwww.rainbowbabybank.org.uk

The Trust gave a £2,900 grant to this charity based in Heckmondwike, Kirklees which was set up by two sisters. The funds enabled the charity to have their first website created and also paid for essential off-site storage costs for all their baby equipment. Co-founder, Sam Cottam said: “The funding allowed us a little more financial security as a small charity and helped to build up some of our reserves. The website funding has made a significant impact ...we aren’t totally reliant on the Facebook algorithms to promote our charity and we are reaching a large audience and have already boosted our fundraising efforts.”

Breaking Barriers Tennis Association (BBTA)www.bbta.uk

The Trust gave £5,000 for three years to BBTA to help them grow and enable more disadvantaged, West Yorkshire youngsters to play tennis. Justin Taundi, Founder & Chair said: “As a relatively new organisation we have been able to lean into the expertise of the Trust through their Trust Manager which has saved us a lot of time, and potential mistakes, as we navigate the growth of the organisation and our delivery of programmes.”

The Sir George Martin Trust is committed to transparency and we work with 360Giving to publish information about our grants. Using the 360Giving data standard, our awarded grants since April 2017 are available to review as a xlsx file here SGMT_grants_360Giving_data_Feb2025

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. This means the data is freely accessible to anyone to be used and shared as they wish. The data must be attributed to the Sir George Martin Trust.

We believe that with better information, grant makers can be more effective and strategic decision makers. 360Giving provides support for grant makers to publish their grants data openly, to understand their data, and to use the data to create online tools that make grant making more effective.

For more information, visit http://www.threesixtygiving.org/