Warwickshire Masonic Benevolent Fund

The Warwickshire Masonic Benevolent Fund, established to uphold Freemasonry's traditions of fraternal charity and mutual aid, primarily provides financial relief to needy Freemasons in the Province of Warwickshire, along with their widows, partners, children, and spinster sisters. In 2024, it amalgamated with the Warwickshire Masonic Charitable Association to form the Warwickshire Freemasons' Charitable Foundation, enhancing efficiency while preserving its core mission of needs-led support for poverty, hardship, vulnerability, education, and training. Managed by a quarterly-meeting committee with Provincial Grand Almoner oversight for emergencies, it blends direct individual aid—submitted via Lodge Almoners—with substantial grants to local non-Masonic charities, fostering responsive, compassionate interventions rooted in local impact and rigorous due diligence.

Funding prioritizes alleviating distress among the Masonic community while extending to Warwickshire-wide causes through partnerships, including hospices, air ambulances, military veterans, dementia and loneliness support for older people, child poverty relief, family bereavement, domestic violence refuges, homelessness, cancer care, and services for disabilities like Huntington's, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, and brain injuries. Grants support projects, core costs, equipment, refurbishments, and emergency relief, emphasizing tangible welfare outcomes.

Eligible applicants are UK-registered charities based in and serving Warwickshire exclusively, with preference for small- to medium-sized organizations (typically under £1 million income); large national entities are ineligible. Unsolicited applications from non-Masonic charities are not accepted—priority goes to invited or established partners via the Foundation's online form—while Masonic individual cases route through Almoners. Typical grants range £1,000–£10,000 (up to £25,000 for strategic projects), reviewed quarterly (March, June, September, December). Distinctively Masonic yet broadly philanthropic, it avoids open deadlines, focusing on discrete, high-impact local relief over unrestricted or non-local funding.