The Charles Plater Trust (CPT) has distributed £4,472,700 to 163 projects since the charity awarded its first grants back in 2008 and has been a broad outcomes focused funder, supporting a diverse range of inspiring education social action, leadership, and research projects over the last 20 years.
Working closely with both faith, and non-faith based, charity partners, CPT seeks to put the principles of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) into action, reaching people and communities living on the margins across England and Wales. At the heart of this work is a belief in the dignity of every person and a preferential option for the poor.
The Trust announced significant grant funding of more than £460,000 to 29 new charity partners in 2026, and understands the significant challenges facing people across Britain, including rising poverty and inequality, the environmental crisis, and an increasing pressure on democratic structures and institutions.
CPT’s Trustees are presently reviewing the Trust’s future funding model, with a renewed focus on how CPT's grants can contribute to the common good and support work that informs public policy; equips leaders to become positive agents of change; and enables our charity partners to respond to injustice, strengthen participation, and restore the dignity, hope and agency of disadvantaged people and groups. Philomena Cullen CPT’s Trust Manager said:
"Reviewing our future funding strategy at this time, affords us the opportunity to more fully honour our commitment to Catholic Social Teaching. We want to continue to evolve as a Trust, to become a more systems change funder. True alignment with our five core CST principles requires us to address the root causes of poverty, exclusion, and injustice that we see in the UK context.
“We know that our limited funding alone cannot undo structural injustice. The systems that marginalise people must be redesigned to serve them. We are looking at ways to leverage our funding more towards the kind of systems change our partners tell us is necessary. We will work with our future grantees to define this change agenda with us and continue to develop genuinely transformative approaches rooted in what Pope Francis describes as a 'culture of encounter' in which ‘all have something good to give and all can receive something good in return’.”
An update on CPT's 2027 small and large grant programmes will be available on our website on Tuesday 15 December 2026.
