About

Lodestar is an independent grant-making foundation working in one region. We were endowed in 1978 by a family engineering business and have no ongoing corporate connection.

We give away roughly a million pounds a year across four programmes. We are eleven people, five of whom read applications.

How we decide

Every application is read by two people, at least one of whom has worked in the field it is about. We visit before we fund anything over £50,000, and we visit again in the second year.

We say no to about four in five applications. Where we say no, we say why, in writing, in a paragraph a person wrote.

What we will not fund

Individuals, statutory obligations, capital appeals we cannot see the running costs for, and any organisation whose accounts we cannot obtain.