The Bell Foundation

The Bell Foundation, a UK-based charitable foundation established by Frank Bell—drawing from his post-WWII experiences founding a clandestine language school as a POW and later the first Bell Language School in Cambridge in 1955—exists to overcome exclusion caused by language barriers. Its mission is to enable multilingual children, adults, and communities, especially those for whom English is an additional language (EAL), to access education, participate fully, and achieve potential. Guided by values of independence, evidence-based rigour, partnership, practical solutions, diversity, advocacy, and long-term engagement, its 2025-2030 strategy targets six objectives: enhancing EAL educational outcomes in schools, improving ESOL provision for adults (including in criminal justice), driving policy/systems change, scaling programmes, optimising assets, and building organisational resilience.

It funds thematic priorities in EAL support for school-aged children and young people, ESOL for adult migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and underserved groups to boost employment and integration, plus systemic advocacy, research, and professional development. Supported activities include practical interventions, teacher training (e.g., EAL Assessment Framework), practitioner research, scalable pilots, and partnerships with schools, charities, and public bodies—exemplified by grants to GYROS for refugee ESOL, Pact for prison language access, and Refugee Education UK mentoring.

Eligible applicants are UK-registered charities and academic institutions operating UK-wide (with focus on high-need areas like London/South East), typically established organisations with specialist expertise and scaling capacity; no income thresholds apply. It does not accept unsolicited general applications—only EOIs by email for targeted programmes like EAL Centres of Expertise (rolling review, multi-year partnerships) or invitations for pilots/research. Typical grants range £10,000–£300,000 (mostly £20,000–£100,000) for projects, capacity building, or research, excluding core/unrestricted, capital, or emergency funding. Distinctively, as a specialist evidence-driven funder, it blends direct delivery, grants, and national policy influence for sustainable language inclusion impact, not short-term fixes.