Our work
Small grants, decided quickly
The fund does one thing: it pays for a specific opportunity for a specific child, before the deadline for that opportunity passes. This page explains how a request becomes a grant, what those grants make possible, and how we judge whether the fund is doing its job.
How a request becomes a grant
Four steps, in order. The whole process is built around the fact that opportunities for children have deadlines.
Step 1: An adult notices
A caseworker, teacher, counsellor, or program director sees that a child is about to miss something — a registration closing, a deposit due, a place on a team that will go to somebody else.
Step 2: They write to us
Plain language, no forms to download. The child's first name and age, the program working with them, the opportunity, the cost, and the date it has to be paid.
Step 3: We review the request
We check that the child is eligible, that the cost is what it appears to be, and that the timing is workable. We ask questions if something is unclear rather than declining quietly.
Step 4: We pay the provider
Wherever possible the money goes directly to the league, the school, the camp, or the teacher. No family has to front the cost, and the child does not have to be identified as the one whose fees were covered.
What a grant makes possible
The clearest way to describe this fund is through the shape of a typical request, so the three below are written as illustrations. They are composites of the kinds of things the fund exists to pay for. They are not accounts of individual children, and no child’s details are published on this site.
A season that would have ended in October. A caseworker writes about a fourteen-year-old who has made a club soccer squad. Registration is paid but the boots and shin guards are not, and the family cannot cover them before the first match. We pay the supplier directly that week. The child plays the full season.
An instrument over the summer. A school lends a clarinet during term but takes it back in June. A music teacher writes to say a student has real aptitude and will lose most of it over a ten-week break. We fund the rental through the summer so the student returns in September further ahead, not further behind.
A prom a young person got to attend. A program director writes three weeks before prom about a senior who has told everyone she is not interested in going. The ticket and a dress are funded. Whether it changes the course of her life is not the point; she was there with her year group, which was.
What we are able to publish
We do not publish photographs, names, or identifying details of the children the fund supports, and we do not ask families for testimonials in exchange for a grant.
How we judge whether this is working
A fund like this one can be measured badly very easily. Counting dollars granted says nothing about whether a child got to play. Collecting emotional stories from families who have just received help is not evidence; it is marketing with a power imbalance built into it.
So we track a small number of things that are actually within our control and that a referring adult can confirm without involving the child at all.
What we track
We publish figures only once we can stand behind them. Where this page would otherwise quote a statistic, it does not, because we would rather say less than say something we cannot evidence.
Our priorities for 2026
What the fund is working on this year, so that anyone considering supporting it knows what their money would go toward.
2026 priorities
Know a child who should be on next season’s team?
Requests come from the adults already working with the child. If that is you, write to us.