E C Graham Belford Charitable Settlement

The E C Graham Belford Charitable Settlement is a grant-making trust dedicated to bolstering smaller grassroots charities through flexible support that enhances organizational sustainability and community impact. Core values emphasize impartiality, robust governance, responsible stewardship, and trustee discretion in fostering voluntary sector resilience. They champion community empowerment, capacity building, and practical aid to local organizations, believing sustainable change arises from enabling volunteer-led groups to deliver diverse charitable services with integrity, local knowledge, and measurable benefit for those in need.

As a generalist funder, they support broad charitable purposes across children and young people via family support programs, after-school clubs, youth mentoring, and interventions for complex health needs, autism spectrum disorder, learning disabilities, ADHD, and physical disabilities; carer respite care and peer support groups for families caring for disabled children; elderly care including befriending, day services, and social isolation relief; poverty alleviation through food insecurity aid, financial hardship support, and community kitchens; mental health counselling, therapeutic activities, and trauma-informed outreach; disability advocacy, employment training, and inclusive sports for adults with learning disabilities; homelessness prevention, domestic abuse recovery, and refugee integration services; community-led education, creative arts, helplines, drop-in centres, and holistic early intervention addressing youth unemployment, addiction recovery, and SEND needs in underserved populations.

They exclude large capital projects and infrastructure, favouring core unrestricted costs and programme delivery instead. Distinctive for eschewing thematic silos, they prioritize volunteer-led grassroots charities demonstrating tangible local impact, good governance, and service to families in crisis, isolated elderly, care leavers, disabled people, ethnic minorities, rural communities, and children with complex needs. Their philosophy values flexible, responsive funding for evidence-based, person-centred activities sustaining the full spectrum of local voluntary efforts.