The Henry Smith Foundation has launched the Career Ready Fund, offering up to eight grants of £200,000 (£50,000 per year over four years) to charitable organisations supporting young people with learning disabilities into employment.
The fund will support projects that embed trained job coaches within mainstream and SEND schools, provide structured careers education and vocational profiling, create meaningful work experience opportunities, and build clear pathways into supported internships, employment and paid work.
Eligible applicants include registered charities, CIOs, not-for-profit CICs and other charitable organisations working in the UK. Organisations must have an annual income of £3 million or less and at least one year of audited or independently examined accounts.
Applications begin with an online eligibility checker, with Expressions of Interest accepted from 22 July 2026.
Expressions of interest will be accepted from 22 July (9am) until the deadline of 2 September 2026 (17:00).