Applications have now closed

Applications for the Community Fund closed on 29 November 2024. The next round of applications will open in Autumn 2025.

Recently awarded

When awarding the grants, we focus on organisations whose values are consistent with our own. This can include making a positive impact on the local people in the community, protecting the local environment, supporting the circular economy, promoting social and community cohesion, and improving science, technology, engineering, and mathematical skills.

Cory has recently distributed funding to these organisations:

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ReWork

An environmental and community regeneration charity with a mission to transform lives, places and communities in need in London.

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Thurrock Reuse Partnership (TRUP)

TRUP promotes re-use by encouraging people to donate unwanted items, which they offer for sale at affordable prices. They provide volunteering opportunities and the prospect of learning new skills and improving social interaction for vulnerable adults.

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Isle of Dogs Sea Cadets

A community Sea Cadet Unit based on the Isle of Dogs, providing maritime enrichment to young people from two local schools, from age 11 from all backgrounds, genders and religions.

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Ahoy

A water-based sports charity, based on the River Thames in Deptford, London. They provide life-changing opportunities for disadvantaged, disabled and at-risk youths.

We fund activities that play a role in strengthening communities. In particular, we focus on groups and projects that support Cory’s goals of:

  • Enhancing the local environment
  • Preventing waste and growing the reuse economy
  • Enhancing science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics skills
  • Supporting employability skills and helping people to access education
  • Increasing engagement with the River Thames
  • Impacting on people in the community in other meaningful ways

We focus on groups and projects based in the areas of London where we operate:

  • Barking and Dagenham
  • Bexley
  • City of London
  • Gravesham
  • Greenwich
  • Hertfordshire
  • Lambeth
  • Hammersmith and Fulham
  • Kensington and Chelsea
  • Thurrock
  • Tower Hamlets
  • Wandsworth
  • Westminster

You can apply if your organisation is a:

  • Voluntary or community organisation
  • Registered charity
  • Constituted group or club
  • Not-for-profit company or community interest company

We are unable to accept applications from:

  • Statutory bodies
  • Schools
  • Individuals
  • Sole traders
  • Companies that can pay profits to directors, shareholders or members (including companies limited by shares)
  • Organisations based outside the UK
  • Organisations that don’t have at least two people on their board or committee who aren’t married, in a civil partnership, in a long-term relationship, living together at the same address, or related by blood
  • One organisation applying on behalf of another

We can fund:

  • Your organisation’s running costs
  • Essential items and equipment
  • Capital project costs
  • One-off events
  • Staff costs
  • Training costs
  • Volunteer expenses

We are unable to fund:

  • Alcohol
  • Contingency costs, loans, endowments or interest
  • Profit-making/fundraising activities
  • VAT you can reclaim
  • Statutory activities
  • Overseas travel
  • Campaigning activities
  • Religious activities (we can fund religious organisations if your project benefits the wider community and doesn’t include religious content)
  • Political or lobbying activities

Cory’s employee Community Fund Committee will select projects based on your application and the criteria above. We might get in touch to talk to you about your application before making our selection.

You will be informed via email and/or telephone whether your application has been successful.

If you are successful, we’ll require your organisation’s bank account details. When the funding arrives in your account, you can start spending it one the activities you told us about in your application.

Please keep records of the things you spend your funding on – and keep track of how it fits with your application. We want to make sure that the funding is being spent the way you said it would. Keeping bank statements can be a good record of what you’ve spent.

If you make small changes to your activities, or what you want to spend the money on, that’s okay, as long as you’re still using the funding to carry out the project you told us about in your application. However, you should contact us if:

  • The main contact for your project changes
  • You’ve finished the project and you have more than £1,000 of the Cory funding left over
  • You want to make significant changes to the project or spend the money on very different things
  • You can’t carry out the project or activities for any reason

We may ask for updates on your activities and project. We may also ask to see copies of receipts, invoices or bank statements relating to your project for at least seven years.

If you’re successful in receiving a grant from the Cory Community Fund, we will publish details of your project and how we’ve supported it on our website, and may request photos from you. We may also ask that we feature your project in other materials, such as our LinkedIn page, Twitter or our Annual Report.

We encourage you to share the good news too, and to keep telling everyone about the difference your project is making to your community. If you’d like to use our logo on your communications, you can get it touch with us.