About our funding

Who can apply?

To be eligible to apply for an award from SCF, applicants must be:

  • a mainstream secondary school in England or
  • a mainstream college in England.

We are not able to accept applications from:

  • primary schools
  • special schools or colleges
  • alternative provision or Pupil Referral Units
  • charities or organisations that support autistic young people and/or their families
  • individuals (including autistic young people and/or their families).

If you are not eligible to apply for funding but have a creative idea, please visit our FAQ page. It will show you how to share your idea with an eligible secondary school or college.

What activity will we consider?

We are looking for innovative, creative solutions.

SCF will consider funding activities that will help autistic young people thrive and learn in mainstream secondary school or college.

We fund activities that:

  • help autistic young people fully take part in mainstream school or college activities where the school’s or college’s ordinarily available provision or statutorily funded support is not enough
  • help autistic young people participate in after-school or outside-college activities or study support
  • improve autistic young people's mental health and well-being.

To see some examples of the type of activity that SCF funds, click here.

What SCF will not fund:

We do not fund the following type of activity:

  • funding which will be passed on to other establishments, for example within an academy or health trust
  • requests where a statutory agency (such as a local authority or health service) has assessed a need and has a responsibility to fund but has failed to so
  • projects which promote religion
  • bursaries, sponsored places, fees or equivalent
  • political activity or campaigning
  • individuals (unless an eligible organisation is applying on their behalf)
  • general appeals or endowment funds
  • help with budget shortfalls or debt repayments
  • projects with unspecified expenditure 
  • organisational overheads or running costs which the organisation would incur whether the project was running or not — although we will consider funding support costs incurred as a direct result of running the project.