Grants to Charities
The Trust makes a wide variety of grants to various UK charities. Please see our latest set of annual accounts for details. In addition, we refer here to some recent case studies.
Here are some examples of charitable grants made by the Trustees:
Disability Africa
The Trust has supported the work of Disability Africa with a grant towards their project in Kenya working to end the exclusion of extremely vulnerable disabled children. Click here to learn more about their work in 2024 and review their impact report.
Saferworld
The Trust awarded a grant of £100,000 to Saferworld in 2023 to support their 12-month project to strengthen community-led peacebuilding initiatives in Yemen. The project was developed to strengthen community and civil society capacities, leading to tangible improvements in community stability and peace. The project has directly contributed to the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Trust’s goals of fostering sustainable peace through education and development interventions. To find out more about the project and the benefits it is providing to the community click here.
SOS Children’s Villages UK
The Trust awarded a grant of £30,000 to SOS Children’s Villages in 2024 in support of their youth training and employability programme in The Gambia. The project has helped support 150 ambitious young people to gain vocational skills and entrepreneurship training to transform their lives. Click here to learn more about their work and review their impact report.
TESSA – The Open University
For a number of years the Trust has supported the Open University and in 2012 we awarded the OU £1million to help fund their Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa project. Please see their recent report. To find out more about this please click here or visit the TESSA website for further information.
Educational Grants
The Trust makes awards directly to UK Universities (no longer to individual students) to assist overseas graduates with the part funding of their tuition fees for masters courses. All applications for funding by individuals for educational grants are to be made through your University, there is no funding awarded to individuals directly from the Trust.
Here are some examples of educational grants made by the Trustees:
Oxford University
The Trust has supported scholars studying at The Department for Continuing Education at Oxford University with an award of £103,908. The award was used as match funding to fully fund 5 scholarships for African and Asian Commonwealth students allowing them to study a master’s in international human rights Law over two years. To learn more about the 2024 cohort please click here.
Royal Northern College of Music
The Trust has supported up and coming, talented musicians with The Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust scholarship for a number of years. Most recently, the Trust awarded £60,000 over a three year period from September 2022. To read more about the recipients of the 2024/25 scholarships please click here.
King’s College London
The African Women in Leadership and Peacebuilding programme is building a new community of leaders with a commitment to peace and security in Africa. The Trustees awarded £150,000 towards scholarships payable over a three year period from September 2022. To read the latest updates on the 2023-24 fellows please click here.