Motability

Motability the charity offers grant programmes for Charities and Organisations which support the transport needs of disabled people living in the UK.

The first two new grant programmes, Community Transport Grants and Wheelchair Sector Grants programme launched on 1 April 2022.

Charities and organisations can apply for grants from £100,000 up to £4 million. To be eligible organisations must be incorporated and have an income of over £150,000 per annum over the last three years.

The Travelling with Confidence Grant Programme aims to help charities and organisations to make an immediate impact by awarding funding to develop, expand and improve confidence in making journeys and active travel for disabled people.

The Travelling with Confidence grants programme has been designed to look at both the policy and practice to make the transport sector more inclusive as well as provide support and training to disabled people to travel independently.

The Reducing Barriers to Driving Grant Programme aims to help charities and organisations with activity which reduces or mitigates barriers to driving experienced by disabled people, without replicating the support offered by the Motability Scheme. Example outputs can be found in the routes to impact on our website. This programme focuses it’s funding on:

Continuation funding for schemes, programmes and initiatives that already exist, and who provide best practice solutions, but need further support to remain operational or scale up the service they can provide to help more disabled people.
Staff or volunteer training and costs.
Full cost recovery grants which includes indirect costs.

The Community Transport grant programme aims to help charities and organisations to make an immediate impact for disabled people, by awarding funding to develop, expand and improve community transport options. This programme focuses it’s funding on:

staff or volunteer training and costs.
increasing the number of vehicles available in the community to help organisations support disabled people.
local, regional, or national initiatives to increase awareness of community transport and influence its inclusion in transport strategy and policy.
schemes, programmes and initiatives that already exist, and provide best practice solutions, but need further support to remain operational or scale up to help more disabled people.

The Wheelchair Sector programme aims to support charities and organisations to make an immediate impact for disabled people, by awarding funding to improve and expand their access to good quality affordable wheelchairs. This programme focuses it’s funding on:

filling current gaps in provision for groups of people who are excluded from receiving help from existing sources/providers.
enabling charities and organisations to help individuals by topping up self-funding.
raising awareness of the challenges faced by disabled people in obtaining suitable, quality and affordable wheelchairs.
programmes to help fund high quality and affordable equipment.
schemes, programmes and initiatives that already exist, and provide best practice solutions, but need further support to remain operational or scale up to help more disabled people.

Motability’s Active Travel Grant Programme helps charities and organisations to improve and expand access to quality and affordable active travel equipment and journeys, to ensure disabled people have the same opportunities to make decisions about how they travel, their impact on the environment and to enjoy the physical and mental health benefits that active travel can provide.

Examples of areas where we are focussing our grant making include but are not limited to:

Providing funding to ensure the voices and needs of disabled people inform and influence design requirements, and crucially, that they are shared with industry and Government to raise awareness.
Providing funding of charitable programmes that introduce disabled people to different active travel products and services.
Supporting existing programmes that have a clear focus on increasing travel confidence and safety for disabled people, to enable them to confidently use active travel products and services.
Providing funding to schemes, programmes and initiatives that are already successful in supporting Active Travel and provide best practice solutions but need further support to remain operational or increase the service they provide, to help more disabled people.
Providing funding to programmes, charities or organisations to help fund more high quality and affordable active travel equipment for disabled people.

Through the Research Grant Programme, they help charities and organisations to make an immediate positive impact for disabled people, to develop, expand and improve transport related research for disabled people, and produce data and findings that can be freely accessed by all. Examples of areas where we are focussing our grant making include but are not limited to:

Grant funding for research into barriers and challenges faced by disabled people when accessing or using transport.
Grant funding for transport related research that identifies good practice and evaluates solutions.
Grant funding to conduct research to inform and improve new or existing transport related programmes and product design.

For more information and how to apply can be found on their website