Get Involved – More Information

The Siobhan Dowd Trust exists to fund any person or groups that:

• Take stories to children and young people without stories;
• Bring the joy of reading and books to children and young people deprived of access to books and of the opportunity to read;
• Fund and support disadvantaged young readers where there is no funding or support.

In accordance with Siobhan’s wishes, our funding process is very open, flexible, and we hope, simple.

FUNDING GUIDELINES FOR THE SIOBHAN DOWD TRUST

• The trustees wish to fund start up innovative schemes, where a small grant will act as “start-up” or seed money to grow into something bigger and ideally self-sustaining.
• The trustees want to encourage scattered groups to work together and co-ordinate the voluntary sector to learn from each other, not act in isolation or in competition with each other.
• Trustees do not need long detailed notes outlining the need for a grant – we appreciate there is a great deal of need, we want grant submissions to give us all the details of what you plan to do to address this need, and what impact a grant would have!

Strings attached:

• The trustees would like publicity in exchange for funding.
• The trustees want rigorous evaluation of the impact of a grant answering the question: Did the grant given encourage the Joy of Reading? How?
• Timing deadlines. Trustees meet three times a year. We ask that funding applications be in three weeks before the trustees meet, to allow for questions to be asked and submissions to be circulated.