We aim to make around 350 grants a year but receive thousands of applications. It is important to understand that only a small proportion of applicants will receive a grant from Tudor, and that your proposal may be turned down even if your work falls within our guidelines. We do not want applicants to have unrealistic expectations.

This is why we have a two-stage application process. We know that putting together a full funding application places heavy demands on your time and resources, so we ask all applicants to complete a brief first-stage proposal instead. These are read by Tudor’s trustees and staff, and those we can take forward for detailed discussion with the trustees are asked to develop a second-stage application.

We estimate that only around one in ten applicants will go through to this second stage. Many proposals rejected at the first stage will be for valuable and interesting work; they may be rejected simply because the ideas are not ones that the trustees want to take forward at that moment. Because of the numbers of applications we receive we cannot provide individual feedback on why we are not taking your proposal through to the second stage.

If you are asked to complete a full second-stage application the chances of succeeding will be higher. But not all second-stage applications will receive funding; even at this stage the trustees have to make difficult choices about what they fund.