17/08/2026
Did you know? Read below for some facts about our funding:
👉 Every Community Foundation for Surrey Main Grants Round has been over-subscribed by 4-5 times for the last 3-4 years.
👉 But that means that the most recent round, just closed, was no more over-subscribed than what has become our 'normal'.
👉 At Expression of Interest (EoI) stage (our first stage of application) we are declining about the same number of applications we have been declining for the last few years - because we don't have enough funds for all the applications, and we don't put grantees through to final stage unless there's a really good chance of them getting funded.
👉 If an application was declined at EoI stage, the most common reason is that we were over-subscribed for a particular type of funding (young people, old people, people in a particular town, etc) and the ones that were put through to final stage were more compelling on demonstrating the need and/or impact.
👉 This means that our success rate at Stage 2 (full application stage), is also roughly the same as it has been for the last 3-4 years (it is 80-85% since you ask).
👉 We are awarding roughly the same number, and roughly the same amount (total funds) in grants via Main Round as we have for the last 4-5 years.
👉 In addition to our main round funding, we are now awarding extra funding via targeted funding rounds like our Clearer Care and Creative Wellbeing Funds, and also extra small grants via our area funds. This means that in the last financial year we awarded over £3.3m in grants (our second highest year, ever).
👉 Our new CRM system does have an AI component which helps us, but our [human] assessors read every single Expression of Interest, Full Application, and End of Grant Report and all the decisions are made by humans, not AI.
👉 We have over 80 different funds, it is our fund owners who decide what grants to award. Fund owners might be individuals, families, businesses or groups of volunteers, depending on the fund - but they are never AI!
