Indigo Trust

Who they support

Since they awarded their first grant in 2001, Indigo has funded initiatives and organisations in several fields both in the UK and overseas. In the past they have supported work on criminal justice and domestic violence, and more recently funded projects across sub-Saharan Africa in areas such as education, agriculture, transparency and accountability. Their current strategy focuses upon 4 areas: Visual impairment: Tackling cataract and uncorrected refractive error in sub-Saharan Africa, which are the leading causes of visual impairment and blindness Access to justice in sub-Saharan Africa: Supporting efforts to increase access to legal information and resources through a network of legal information institutes and similar bodies Access to justice in the UK: Providing people who need it with access to legal advice and representation through law centres and legal advice providers Better grant-making: Working to support more effective grant-making and philanthropy by individual donors, trusts and foundations and others

• The average annual spending of grantees has been £4 million
• The average age of charities supported has been years.

Grant criteria

Indigo does not accept unsolicited proposals as the open application process has proven burdensome for both sides in the past and has rarely resulted in new grants being awarded

Grant details

The Indigo Trust is a UK-based grant-making foundation that is part of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts (SFCT)

Application procedure

Through a combination of desk-based research, scoping visits, recommendations from partners and suggestions from grantees, they identify suitable partner organisations and projects to support. This approach allows them to directly target relevant and high-quality organisations, while reducing the burden associated with high volumes of unsuccessful, unsolicited proposals. They regularly review the process to identify potential improvements to the system