Jeans for Genes Grant Programme – United Kingdom

Goals

• Their funding strategy is unchanged and focuses Jeans for Genes’ grant making on trying to achieve two ambitious impact goals:
  • Organisations serving the genetic condition community become stronger, more resilient, and sustainable improving their ability to meet need and provide appropriate support in the long term;
  • Everyone in the UK living with a genetic condition and their family can access the appropriate support when they need it so that they feel supported, valued, and included.

Grant Streams

• Core Costs Grant
  • Organisations serving the genetic condition community become stronger, more resilient, and sustainable improving their ability to meet need and provide appropriate support in the long term.
• Project Grants
  • Appropriate support is available for all individuals living with a genetic condition in the UK and their families, when needed so that they feel supported, valued and included.

Funding Information

• To work towards these impact goals, the Jeans for Genes Grant Programme is comprised of two strands of funding:
  • Core cost funding – they award small front line genetic condition charities single year grants of £5,000 towards their organisation’s core costs to enable them to be in a stronger, more resilient position to continue to provide vital support to their communities, in the long term;
  • Project funding – they award single year project grants of up to £20,000 to front line, genetic condition charities so that individuals living with a genetic condition and their families can access the right support at the time they need it.

Eligible Projects

• Core Costs Grants
  • They want their funding to support frontline genetic condition organisations to:
  • Be empowered, strong and sustainable
  • Be flexible and responsive to changing circumstances
  • Invest in organisational development, systems, and processes
  • Strengthen their governance
  • Effectively demonstrate the impact that they make
  • Collaborate, share expertise and resources
• Project Grants
  • They want their funding to support projects that:
    • Create added support networks or develop existing ones.
    • Inform and empower individuals living with a genetic condition and their families and carers.
    • Address a key transition point (e.g., point of diagnosis, transition to adult services or bereavement).
    • Improve the physical, mental, or emotional wellbeing of affected individuals, families, and carers.
    • Enable knowledge, awareness, skills, or attitudes to be acquired that are then applied so that those with a genetic condition and their families are supported, valued, and included.
    • Engage with diverse and marginalised communities who are also living with a genetic condition to identify and challenge policies, practices and perceptions that contribute to health inequalities

Eligibility Criteria

• Core Costs Grant
  • Organisations must be registered with either the Charity Commission for England and Wales, The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland or The Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR).
  • Organisations must be based and deliver their work in the UK.
  • Organisations should be a genetic condition specific charity or a charity whose beneficiaries are solely those with genetic conditions and/or their families. Jeans for Genes defines a genetic condition as one caused by a gene or chromosome alteration. They recognise that there are genetic components to several complex health conditions, but they do not consider these to be genetic conditions for the purposes of this grant programme.
  • The organisation must be at least 18 months old and have published their first set of annual accounts.
  • Organisations should have an annual income of between £20,000 and £300,000 (as reported in their most recent set of accounts filed with The Charity Commission).
  • For charities that work with children and vulnerable adults, Jeans for Genes would expect that appropriate safeguarding policies are in place, a copy of which is required to accompany your application.
  • Please note that it is a condition of your grant that you send us an End of Grant Report Form and an interim report before the end of January 2026.
  • They cannot guarantee grants to all organisations that meet these criteria, as funding is limited. The grant panel will review and assign funding based on strength of application and relative need.
• Project Grants
  • Organisations must be registered with either the Charity Commission for England and Wales, The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, or The Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR).
  • Organisations must be based and deliver their work in the UK.
  • Organisations should be a genetic condition specific charity. Organisations supporting a range of beneficiaries that include those with genetic conditions among them (for example, hospices and special needs schools) are not eligible to apply for this funding. Jeans for Genes defines a genetic condition as one caused by a single gene or chromosome alteration. They recognise that there are genetic components to several complex health conditions, but they do not consider these to be genetic conditions for the purposes of this grant programme.
  • The organisation should have an annual income of less than £1 million (as reported in their most recent set of accounts filed with The Charity Commission).
  • For charities that work with children and vulnerable adults, Jeans for Genes would expect that appropriate safeguarding policies are in place, a copy of which is required to accompany your application.
  • They cannot guarantee grants to all organisations that meet these criteria, as funding is limited. The grant panel will review and assign funding based on strength of application and relative need.

For more information, visit Jeans for Genes.