Watch our Video
We invited charities to tell us what it is we do they value and this is what they said. And we're always enthusiastic about shouting out about the brilliant work of our front-line charities. Click any name or image to find out more about the fantastic work they do helping others.
CEF is the best-informed source of guidance for fundraising I have found. I appreciate the very human tone, and some of the anecdotes and informal opinions. It's enjoyable to engage with, and brings a welcome (and therapeutic) note of humour to a line of work that can sometimes get you down.
Our website has more than 0.75 million active users annually, our weekly newsletter is sent to 100k+, we have 50k registered users and the AI bunnies deliver circa 40k support sessions each year to not only non profits but also individuals seeking help. Our in-system feedback rating is 9/10, 62% of community feedback respondents rate us 10/10 for trustworthiness and 44% of our 1000s of learners rate our courses 10/10. We have 1.5 FTE staff and a budget under £100k pa.
 |
The Include Project, a charity which changes the lives of people with communication needs, registered as a charity in 2018. It was community led and started by a founder and founded with passion but very little knowledge and understanding of the governance and fundraising landscape vital to the survival of the charity, and the lives of the people it supported.
At those early stages of start up, when funds were non-existent, there was one source of easily accessible and reliable governance information and that was the Charity Excellence Framework. We were able to meet our Charity Commission obligations and ensure a solid foundation for Include. |
|
Having access to support from Charity Excellence has been a game changer for myself and our charity, Recyke-a-bike. Although we have almost 30 staff within our charity, we are extremely time poor and stretched. Having the Funding Finder emails regularly dropped into my inbox has freed me up when looking for funding. The content is very easy to read and understand. Ian’s additions to some of the charity groups I’m part of on Facebook have also been extremely useful. I really appreciate that Charity Excellence is great one-stop-shop for all things charity support and really hope this useful platform continues. Eloise Brakefield |
 |
I've been receiving your emails for a couple of years now and they have been invaluable in funding our work and giving me leads to obscure funding sources and opportunities we'd never have found otherwise. Likewise your online resources (funding searches, policies, events/training sessions) are viewed like an extension of our tiny organisation. Charity Excellence is effectively another part-time team member of our charity working away remotely (as we all are part-time homebased workers). You not only save us time, you save us money and generate income opportunities for us. Then you go above and beyond with hints/tips on living a healthy lifestyle! Thank you for all that you and your AI bunnies do. Rachael Bridger.
Friends Without Borders is a small, independent charity supporting refugees and people seeking asylum in Portsmouth. We run a drop-in service that provides a safe social space, casework, English classes, therapeutic art and a meal, we also run a free legal immigration service project, Access to Justice.
|
I'm in my third year as the Service Manager and the support of Charity Excellence has been really invaluable. I had no experience of charity work when I started and it was a very steep learning curve. Receiving your newsletters is wonderful, not only are they packed with useful advice, links and webinar opportunities, but they are presented in simple language that is easy to understand and feels like a personal chat. The humour is uplifting and this is a great asset, as working in a small charity as a sole employee can be stressful and isolating. You have provided us with signposting to funding that we would never have sourced otherwise and the policy templates have been incredibly helpful. We have made use of so many of the opportunities you offer, it is a fantastic service. Thank you so much for your wonderful advice, help and guidance. Rachel McCormick
|
 |
I joined the charity world in November 2023 having previously worked for 25 years in the NHS. Everything was completely new to me and my predecessor had left a few months prior. My first day in the charity was a Trustee meeting and a supper for some of our volunteers, talk about being a rabbit in headlights!
In the early days I found the questionnaires and the dashboard on your website really helpful as guides to prioritise my learning and my efforts. The resources and data finder have been instrumental in saving me time finding trusting sources of information and sound templates on which to base new pieces of work. The funding finder has secured us raffle prizes and also alerted me to available funds that I have not previously heard of, from which we have received significant funds - thank you. I have managed to attend one webinar which I found very informative and I sent the AI learning modules to our trustees, some of whom I know have partaken! I am continually inspired by your passion and motivation to help other charities and extremely grateful for the guidance and confidence you have given me. Sarah Woodman
 |
Charity Excellence has been quietly indispensable to us. It’s the kind of support that doesn’t make a song and dance but genuinely changes what’s possible for a small charity. Through CEF we’ve found grants we’d never otherwise have heard of — smaller trusts and foundations that have made real differences to the welfare of our rescued herd and to our youth programmes. We’ve leaned on CEF’s AI resources to figure out what’s actually worth our limited time and what isn’t in a space that’s changing too fast for us to keep up with on our own. And alongside the practical tools, it’s the sense of being part of something wider — of being heard, supported, and connected to collaborators we wouldn’t have met otherwise. For an off-grid Scottish charity running an equine sanctuary on a reclaimed former landfill, that matters more than I can easily put into words. Danielle McKinnon, Founder |
| My name is Sue and I'm the fundraiser for The Rock, a youth organisation in Cheltenham. Charity Excellence, Ian and Kate have been wonderfully helpful over the years with finding funders for me to apply to. Their supportive if I have questions and they listen to feedback - something virtually unknown in my experience. With this help and support I've raised over £500,000 in Grant funding for The Rock. |  |
I rated them all 10 as I think the Charity Excellence Framework is brilliant and I am pretty sure we would not be a registered charity in our 3rd year of operation without the helpful tools, information and templates gained from you.
In our continuous Community Feedback Surveys, 62% of respondents rate us 10/10.
I think what you do is amazing and very much appreciated.
| We used Charity Excellence's template policies as part of an exercise to upgrade our organisational policies to ensure that we had the full suite of policies which the Charity Commission ask charities to report on within the annual return submission. Having access to the Charity Excellence policies was an incredibly useful way of understanding what a good version each policy would look like, and saved us a huge amount of time and resource compared to having to create them from scratch or pay for expensive access to template policies. As a result we were able to focus our internal conversations on how to adapt the policies to meet the specific needs of our organisation, which was a much more focused and productive use of our time. |  |
With the help from Charity Excellence we were able to finalise the new policies really efficiently and in time to report to the Charity mmission. We are so grateful to have access to this support from Charity Excellence. While I'm here just to say we also find all the funding leads and info super useful. Thank you so much for everything you do! Juliet Michaelson, Co-Director .
 |
Bristol Association for Neighbourhood DaycareCharity excellence has been a godsend for smaller charities providing us with free fundraising advice from grant making bodies to running raffles.
They offer a wealth of knowledge and provide up to date information relating to the charity and fundraising world from the use of AI to corporate support.
A big thank you from all of us at Kate Williams, BAND
|
TTPNetworkI’ve found the CE website very helpful in terms of the template policies, and they have certainly made a difference to my workload when ensuring that we have what we need to make our governance sound, and satisfy the Charity Commission regarding our governance. As a small charity with under £70k t/o and just one part time member of staff (me!) time is a precious commodity. CE is often the first place I go to for any information regarding policies, funding and general advice. Thank you Ian for making this available to us. Jo McIntyre BEM, Charity Director |
 |
I am a trustee for 3 different charities, one is a school Friends of, one is a village hall where we are embarking on a very ambitious regeneration project and the third is a museum and educational grant giving charity. Charity excellence is my go to place for grant funding information and I have used it numerous times for local and national grant information and it has enabled me to raise thousands of pounds for each of the charities. Without the exceptional work that Ian does my workload would be significantly increased and I know there are many funds that I would never have found out about and I know that the village hall project in particular wouldn’t be as far on as it is. Simon Brock
 |
GoStart Community Transport As a small Charity, (c£100K) the perpetual search for funding brought us to CEF. In addition to the huge amount of useful information about funding, it is the CEF Quality Mark
that is our biggest benefit so far.
I use the "badge" on all my email communications. The questionnaires are very well thought out and the annual process of self-assessment monitors progress.
It is valuable for the Trustees to demonstrate this way that they take quality Assurance seriously, aim for continual improvement, and use external standards against which to measure. David Martin.
|
Fabulous resource, very easy to use and understand
People completing the core health check system are invited to rate and review the system. The rating is 9/10. Those completing all 8 questionnaires with a scoring quality of at least 'Good' are awarded the Quality Mark for the current year.
Easy to use and thought provoking
|
A couple of years ago, The Metta Centre for Trauma Therapy embarked on its first coordinated fundraising drive. We also needed to update some of our policies and other charity documentation. Discovering the Charity Excellence site was a game changer. It’s such a comprehensive resource and it’s always being refreshed and updated. We still use it weekly to look for possible funders. Tim May |
 |
 |
The Garden Classroom is a grassroots nature-connection charity based in Islington, London's most nature-deprived borough. Our greatest funding challenge is always securing core funding for our activities. We deliver around 50 nature connection sessions each week.
I spotted the opportunity to send information about our charity to the Ariel Re Charity Fund in the corporate funding section of a recent Charity Excellence newsletter. A short online application was swiftly followed by a Teams meeting with our CEO, resulting in a £10,000 unrestricted grant. Not only would we have had no idea about the fund without the Charity Excellence newsletter, but this sum represents a hugely significant grant for our small charity and one which will help us support over 10,500 nature-deprived Londoners this year. Here's a link to a lovely one-minute video. Thank you again for all the content and information you disseminate each week through your newsletter. Anna Woodward. |
|
Increasingly we rely on CEF as one of our main sources of funding information and for free training resources, particularly AI. Their funding resource is well curated, all in one place, easy to use and updated frequently. Their regular newsletters are a useful reminder, highlighting new sources of funding as well as looming funding deadlines.
|
|
We have used this funding information to successfully secure £5K of core funding. We are a small charity providing social and therapeutic horticulture to adults with learning disabilities and other support needs for over 30 years. We are facing a widening gap between our service costs and the (social care) funding we receive. Securing core funding is essential to continue to bridge the gap.
I have completed a number of their free AI training modules – well crafted, manageable chunks of relevant AI training that easily fit in to a working day. This is particularly important for small charities who risk being left behind in terms of AI. Thank you, CEF.
|
 |
We frequently rely on your resources to keep our operations running smoothly:
Gemma Warren.
I wanted to write and say that finding your website a few years ago was a gamechanger for me. I was relatively new to fundraising for charities - as previously only applied to the Lottery and the Arts Council - and I was suddenly opened up to a wealth of information. You are a go-to for me every month (at least) as I search for potential funders for the Chelsea Theatre and CoDa Dance Company. I've found the downloadable lists particularly helpful, and occasionally have looked at some of the policies. The funding updates, the webinars, the constant enthusiasm are invaluable. Thank you. Tina Carter.
A registered charity ourselves, the CEF works for any non profit, not just charities.
Plus, 65+ policies, 8 online health checks, the Quality Mark and the huge resource base. Our AI Ready programme and our 11 free online AI training courses.
Find Funding, Free Help & Resources - Everything Is Free.
