Funding for Westcountry Charities, Community Groups & Schools
What We Fund
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Number of Grants (since 1979)
Value of Grants in £ (since 1979)
Who We Are
The Norman Family Trust was set up in 1979 by Mr W K Norman after he sold and retired from his Norman’s Cash & Carry business, which had a number of thriving stores across the South West. Mr Norman was keen to repay the loyal support of his customers from the region and, along with other family members as fellow benefactors and trustees, set up a grant-making trust to provide funding to Westcountry charities and other non-profit organisations.
The Trust is based in Budleigh Salterton in East Devon, which is where Mr Norman lived and opened his first store.
Paper cutting showing the original Norman’s store in Station Road, Budleigh Salterton
When to Apply – 2026
Due to an increase in applications, we’ve introduced the following schedule to give staff and trustees additional time to properly process and assess requests. If you’d like your application to be considered at a specific meeting, please ensure it has been submitted online by the deadline below. If information is missing, or trustees feel they need to know more about your organisation and/or the project you are applying for, your application may be deferred until a later meeting. Trustees have the discretion to consider late, urgent requests if they have the capacity to do so and sufficient information has been received.
| Meeting Date | Deadline (midday) |
| 23rd March 2026 | CLOSED |
| End May 2026 | 23rd April 2026 |
| End July 2026 | 25th June 2026 |
| End September 2026 | 27th August 2026 |
| End November 2026 | 22nd October 2026 |
Increased Focus on Animals and Environment
As the result of a recent policy review, the Trust has decided to return to its roots and focus its funding on the core areas mentioned in the governing documents by the Norman Family. This means we will continue to support projects benefitting young people and adults, but also we want to increase our support to organisations working in animal welfare and those looking after and protecting the natural environment in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset (TA postcodes only). We therefore wish to strongly encourage such organisations to apply for funding.
We’re now asking all new applicants to choose a main and sub-category when completing the online application form. We’ve produced some guidance to help you choose the category that is the best fit for your request – please CLICK HERE to read about our new funding categories (opens in a new tab).
Questions & Answers
Who do we fund?
We consider applications from Registered Charities, CIOs, CICs, non-profit sports clubs and other voluntary and community groups. We also consider applications from state schools but please check the Our Funding page for restrictions.
What do we fund?
All applicants are asked to choose a main and sub-category that is the best fit for their request, during the online application process. You can find out more about these categories HERE (opens in new tab). The main categories are:
- Young People (up to age 25)
- Animals and Environment
- Adults (aged 25+)
We prefer to receive applications towards specific projects or items – please provide budgets/quotes when submitting your form. If fundraising towards the project or items still has some way to go, the Trust may prefer to offer a contribution in the form of a pledge rather than grant, which would then be payable when fundraising has been completed.
We can consider requests for running costs/core costs but are unable to support these on an ongoing basis. Therefore, if you apply for running costs/core costs and are successful, you’ll need to apply for a different purpose in your next application.
What don't we fund?
We are unable to consider requests from individuals.
In order to reflect the wishes of our founder, we don’t fund any projects or organisations which use live animals for research or testing.
We also don’t fund the maintenance or upkeep of religious buildings and any faith-based projects or projects with any religious elements.
We’re not currently funding festivals, although this is subject to annual review. We have now outlined our funding priorities going forward and details of our new focus categories are HERE (opens in new tab)
Where do we fund?
We can only support projects where the beneficiaries are in our area of benefit: the counties of Devon, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly) and Somerset (TA postcodes only). When making decisions, trustees will prioritise applications from East Devon to reflect the wishes of our founder.
We tend to prefer smaller, local organisations as our grants will make more of an impact to the work of such groups. However, if your organisation is regional or national, you may still apply providing you can show in your application that the beneficiaries of the project (or a significant majority) are within the area mentioned above.
How much do we give?
Most of the grants we award are between £1,000 and £5,000. We will consider larger requests but these are unlikely to be supported unless we have a longstanding relationship with the applicant and can be satisfied that the grant will have a significant impact.
Please be aware that our trustees may decide to support your application at a lower level than that requested and we strongly encourage you to approach other funders as well. We’re always oversubscribed and unable to support all requests in full, even if they otherwise meet our criteria.
If your application is towards a large capital project and you still have some way to go before completing your fundraising, trustees may decide to award a pledge rather than a grant, which will become payable when you are ready to proceed with the work and have the remaining funding in place.
You can see further information about the sort of grants we make on our Facts and Figures page.
How long will it take?
The Grants Committee meets every other month and considers all applications received up to the meeting deadline, which is approximately a month before the meeting date. This means that there should be a maximum of 3 months between application submission and receipt of a decision. We aim to let all applicants know the outcome within a day or two of the meeting and grant payments are made shortly afterwards. We’ve now introduced a schedule for the year with all deadline dates in the section above. Please also check in the News section of this website for latest updates on the Trust’s funding.
If information is missing, or trustees feel they need to know more about your organisation and/or the project you are applying for, your application may be deferred until a later meeting.
If your application is successful, you can expect to receive your grant soon after the meeting date. We’ll let you know when to expect the transfer of funds in your grant offer e-mail.
How to apply?
All applications must be submitted via our online application form before the stated deadline to be considered at a specific meeting. As the Trust is currently oversubscribed, deadlines are strictly enforced. The application form is available on our Apply for Funding page; please read all information on that page before applying.
Your application must include full details of how the requested funds will be used, supported by quotes or a project budget where appropriate. Applications missing this information may be deferred to a later meeting, as we are unable to consider incomplete submissions.
Grant payments are made by BACS, and proof of your organisation’s bank details must be provided with your application. You will be required to confirm receipt of funds and may need to complete a short online monitoring report 6 months after grant payment.
The Trust’s financial year runs from April to March. To ensure fairness, we normally consider only one application per organisation per year, whether successful or unsuccessful. If an application is withdrawn before the meeting, you may reapply at any time.
Latest from the Trust
Grant Payments
If you are unsure if you’ve received a grant payment from the Trust because the originating account name and/or reference is missing, the account number from which the payment was made ends in ****5912.
Payments to CAF Bank accounts show as internal transfers.
Contact Us
The Trust’s staff work partly from home and partly from our office and meeting space in Budleigh Salterton. While we can accept post at our office, we’d prefer it if you didn’t send us any papers or other items as we don’t have storage for them. E-mail is our preferred method of communication wherever possible: info@nfct.org
We do not have an office phone number.
Both new applications and monitoring reports should be submitted via our online system.
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