Early Years Parenting Fund FAQs

Yes. We welcome applications from organisations based in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. You must be a charitable organisation registered in and working in the UK, including:

• Registered charities and Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIOs)
• Community Interest Companies (CICs) that are not-for-profit with an asset lock
• Other not for profit charitable organisations delivering work aligned with our objects

Your organisation must have an annual income between £100,000 and £5 million in your most recent published accounts. You must also have at least one year of audited or independently examined accounts.

Yes. To be eligible for this Fund, your work must already have evidence demonstrating its impact.

Your evidence must:

• Be published at the time of application (on your website as a minimum)
• Include data that can be disaggregated to specific populations or groups
• Demonstrate contribution to improvement in at least one early childhood development area: physical health, cognitive development, or social and emotional development
• Show fidelity to evidence-based early childhood practice

This first round prioritises organisations with strong, credible existing evidence of impact in the communities they serve.

Disaggregated data means data that is broken down into smaller groups so that differences and patterns can be better understood. For example, this might include data broken down by parent or child characteristics such as gender, race or ethnicity, and age. This helps show who your work is reaching and whether different groups are experiencing different outcomes.

Published evidence of outcomes should be publicly accessible online. This might include material published on your organisation’s website or on the website of a partner organisation, such as reports, evaluations, research findings, or case studies. The link should be accessible without requiring a login or private access.

You should be able to show that your work is grounded in strong evidence of what improves children’s outcomes, and that you deliver it consistently and as intended, rather than an adapted or improvised version. Any adaptations i.e. for culture or community purposes, should strengthen rather than undermine the evidence base.

This round focuses on organisations with well-established evidence of their impact. If your evidence base is still developing, we encourage you to check our website in early 2027 for future rounds, which may focus on organisations building their evidence base.

If your organisation is not focused on the specific communities named in the Fund guidance, you must demonstrate that the majority of the children and families you support live in areas experiencing high levels of deprivation.

This means that more than half of your beneficiaries should live in areas ranked within the most deprived 20% nationally, using the official deprivation index for the nation where your work takes place:

• England: Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD)
• Wales: Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD)
• Scotland: Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD)
• Northern Ireland: Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure (NIMDM)

You should be able to explain how you know this, for example through postcode data, service user records, or other reliable information about the communities you support.

If you are a not-for-profit CIC with an asset lock, you can apply. We will ask for your governing documents and most recent accounts, and you must demonstrate a clear charitable purpose and that any surplus is reinvested into your work.

Yes. If you already have a Henry Smith Foundation grant, you can still apply to this Fund. There is no guarantee we will fund organisations with more than one active grant at a time.

No. Organisations may only submit one application to this Fund.

No. We do not fund individuals. Applications must come from eligible organisations.

This Fund supports organisations working with:

• Parents with children aged newborn to five from Black (Caribbean, African, Any Other Black), Pakistani, and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities
  And/or
• Parents with children aged newborn to five living in areas ranked within the most deprived 20% nationally (using the relevant national deprivation index).

Your organisation must work closely with and be trusted by the communities you aim to benefit.

When we refer to “parents”, we mean anyone with a primary caregiving role for a young child. This includes parents, carers, kinship carers, guardians, and other family members responsible for raising a child.

We recognise that families take many forms, and we welcome applications from organisations supporting a wide range of caregivers of children aged newborn to five.

The Fund focuses on children from newborn to age five. If your organisation works with a wider age range, you may apply, but you must clearly demonstrate how the work you are planning to do benefits children aged newborn to five. If you are successful, our funding may be restricted to early years activity only.

We are looking for work that demonstrates contribution to improvement in at least one of the following early childhood development areas:

• Physical development
• Cognitive development, including early language and communication
• Social and emotional development

Your evidence should show how your parenting support contributes to outcomes in one or more of these areas. We are particularly interested in work that can demonstrate fidelity to evidence-based approaches and has evidence that disaggregates data by the specific communities served.

We are starting where early childhood outcome gaps are largest and want to support charitable organisations that do the strongest work in this space.

Early years services and programmes have focused on the widest audiences and change at scale rather than a targeted, community appropriate approach. This has compounded the high risk of poor early child outcomes that has persisted for these groups over the past two decades. These inequalities are long‑standing, predictable, and avoidable. That’s why we’re focusing in on evidence of impact and work alongside specific communities.

This is year one of a five year programme looking at improving children’s outcomes via parenting support. We expect this fund to adapt during the next five years, e.g. the next round in early 2027 will focus on organisations with the same strong community connections but with developing evidence bases. Future rounds may look at other parent groups.

We are open to funding any effective, evidence-based parenting support that is:

• Rooted in the cultural identity and lived realities of the communities you serve
• Trusted and valued by families
• Flexible and responsive to need
• Grounded in established early childhood practice

We will not fund:

• Activity supporting pregnancy (a separate Maternity Equity Fund will open in Summer 2026)
• Work outside the UK
• Activity that has already taken place
• Individuals
• Work that is not legally charitable
• Local authorities or statutory services
• Activity that promotes religion
• Organisations unable to show evidence of impact

There are three stages:

1. Expression of Interest (EOI) – a brief form with approximately four questions
2. Full Application – by invitation only
3. A call with a member of our team – to learn more about your work and safeguarding processes and give you a chance to ask questions

We will invite around 35 organisations to submit a full application.

• Fund opens: 3 June 2026 at 9am
• EOI deadline 1 July 2026 at 5pm
• Full application deadline (by invitation): 21 August 2026 at 5pm
• A conversation with our team: 24 August – 11 September 2026
• Decisions: October 2026

You must start your grant within six months of the award date.

If we decide not to invite you to submit a Full Application, we will explain why in writing. We review hundreds of Expressions of Interest, so unfortunately, we cannot provide detailed feedback.

If you submit a full application and are unsuccessful, we will offer a feedback call.

Yes. We encourage you to contact us before submitting your EOI if you are unsure whether the Fund is right for you. Email gettingstarted@henrysmith.foundation or call 020 7264 4970.

Yes. AI tools can be helpful for drafting and accessibility. However, your application must accurately reflect your organisation’s own work, voice and evidence. Please refer to our AI guidance.

Grants are £56,250 per year for four years (a total of £225,000 per organisation).

The funding is flexible and can be used for your general running costs in support of eligible work.

The funding is flexible, but it must support work that clearly aligns with the aims and target groups of this Fund. In some cases, we may restrict funding to specific early years activity.

If awarded a grant, you will be asked to:

• Provide recent bank details
• Complete an annual online report
• Take part in a yearly check-in call
• Host a mid-grant visit (in year two or three)*
• Submit a final report at the end of your grant

These requirements are about learning and relationship-building, not monitoring for compliance alone.

*During the grant period, someone from our team may arrange to visit you. These visits help us get to know your work better and to build a stronger relationship between us. You might also be invited to take part in learning and knowledge exchange events with other funded organisations or capacity building activity.

Yes. We offer an accessibility support grant to help cover costs such as:

• BSL interpreters
• Translation
• Scribes
• Assistive technology
• Support workers

You can request up to:

• £250 at Expression of Interest stage
• £500 at Full Application stage

Please contact us to request accessibility support before submitting your application.