Almost £3.5 million. More than 1,100 grants. One purpose.
Women’s Fund for Scotland exists to put resources into the hands of women and girls—and the organisations that understand their lives best.
Our latest analysis of our grantmaking data reveals the scale and breadth of that work. Across our recorded grant history, we have awarded £3,476,937 through 1,109 grants, supporting around 700 organisations working with women and girls across Scotland.
Since February 2013 alone, we have awarded more than £2.08 million through 452 grants.
Behind every figure is an organisation responding to a real need: supporting women recovering from violence and trauma; tackling poverty and isolation; improving physical and mental health; building confidence and skills; developing women’s leadership; or creating opportunities for women and girls to participate, connect and thrive.
Because wherever there is a social need or inequality, women and girls experience it—often in distinct and disproportionate ways.
Reaching every part of Scotland
Our funding has reached organisations working in all 32 Scottish local authority areas.
Glasgow and Edinburgh understandably account for a significant proportion of our historic funding, reflecting their populations and concentration of voluntary organisations. However, our recent grantmaking shows funding becoming less geographically concentrated.
Since 2022, we have awarded more than £604,000 through 138 grants, reaching 124 different recipient organisations across 25 local authority areas. Almost 40% of that funding went to organisations based outside Glasgow and Edinburgh’s share has decreased compared with our longer-term grantmaking history.
Recent grants have supported work from the Western Isles and Highlands to the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Ayrshire, Dundee and communities throughout central Scotland.
For groups considering applying to us, our message is simple: we are a fund for women and girls across the whole of Scotland.
Funding grassroots work—not just familiar names
One of the clearest findings is how widely our funding has been distributed.
More than 500 recipient organisations appear to have received only one grant from us. Together, these one-time recipients account for almost half of all the funding we have awarded.
The ten organisations receiving the largest cumulative amounts account for less than 10% of our total funding. Even the top 20 account for only around 17%.
This matters because it demonstrates that our funding is not concentrated among a small group of large or long-established charities. We actively seek to reach grassroots organisations, emerging groups and organisations that may struggle to access larger or more traditional sources of funding.
For our donors and funding partners, that provides access to an extraordinary network of community-led work. A donation to Women’s Fund for Scotland does not support only one issue or one place. It can reach many different organisations tackling the inequalities affecting women and girls throughout Scotland.
Small grants with significant value
The size of our grants has changed over time.
During 2000–05, the median award recorded in our data was £1,000. From 2021–26, it was £4,800.
Since 2022, most awards have been between £2,500 and £5,000. This reflects both increasing delivery costs and the amount grassroots organisations now need to undertake meaningful work.
These may be considered small grants within institutional philanthropy, but they can be transformational for the organisations receiving them. They can fund a new group, provide specialist support, remove barriers to participation, test an idea or sustain work that might otherwise disappear.
Grassroots organisations often achieve a great deal with comparatively modest sums because they have deep relationships, local knowledge and the trust of the women and girls they support.
Demand continues to exceed the funding available
Our published grant data also illustrates the gap between what successful applicants request and what we can award.
Across our grantmaking history, successful applicants requested more than £4.08 million and received almost £3.48 million—approximately 85% of the amount requested. Only around half of recorded grants were funded in full.
Since 2022, successful applicants alone have received approximately £69,000 less than they requested.
That figure does not include the much greater unmet demand represented by eligible organisations whose applications we could not fund at all. In our 2024/25 funding round, for example, 116 organisations requested around £550,000, but the funding available allowed us to make 28 grants totalling £114,963.
The ambition, expertise and community connections already exist. What is missing is sufficient funding.
An opportunity for donors and funding partners
Women’s Fund for Scotland offers major donors, companies, trusts and foundations a way to support a diverse portfolio of work through one trusted Scottish funder.
We understand the sector. We identify strong grassroots organisations, assess applications carefully and direct resources where they can have meaningful impact. Our reach allows donors to support women and girls across different communities, needs and parts of Scotland without having to identify and assess dozens of individual organisations themselves.
Our funding priorities—Heal, Thrive and Rise—recognise that women and girls need opportunities to:
- Heal from harm, trauma, discrimination and inequality.
- Thrive through improved wellbeing, confidence, security, skills and opportunity.
- Rise by developing leadership, influencing change and building collective power.
Our analysis shows what sustained investment has already achieved. It also shows how much more could be done.
With additional partners and donors, we can fund more of the organisations that apply, meet a greater proportion of their real costs and extend our reach into communities that remain underrepresented in recent funding rounds.
Help us write the next chapter
We are proud to be approaching £3.5 million awarded. This is not simply a financial milestone. It represents hundreds of organisations, thousands of women and girls, and more than two decades of locally rooted change.
If you are an individual donor, company, trust or foundation looking to invest in women and girls in Scotland, we would love to talk to you about what we could achieve together.
And if you are part of a grassroots organisation working with women and girls, we encourage you to follow Women’s Fund for Scotland for news of future funding opportunities.
Together, we can help women and girls across Scotland Heal, Thrive and Rise.