Change lives with the Second Chance Grant.

Waggel's Second Chance Grant offers individually tailored grants ranging from £1,000 to £12,500 for small rescue shelters that focus their work on facilitating the rescue and rehoming of cats and dogs in the UK. 

We fund projects and activities to help small organisations carry out their support work, as well as those who seek to educate potential pet owners on the benefits of adopting a pet.

We only accept applications from professionals working for a registered charity who:

- Are working directly with cats and/or dogs 

- Are based in the UK (excluding the Channel Islands)

- Facilitate the adoption and rehoming process for cats and dogs in the UK

-Are registered with the Charity Commission

If successful, the applicant will need to start the project within 4 weeks of receiving the funds, as well as provide an impact report 12 months after funds are received.

For more information visit our Terms & Conditions page.

At the moment, we are only able to support charities that are registered and based in the UK. This also includes UK-based organisations that may facilitate the adoption and rehoming of cats and dogs that have been brought in from other countries.

Pet ownership saw a huge rise during the COVID-19 pandemic though life after lockdown has seen many pets being placed in shelters. Rescue shelters are now under increasing pressure to meet demand, and in many cases, don’t have the available resources and capacity to meet this need. 

A large proportion of the pets we currently insure are made up of puppies and kittens that are usually purchased from breeders. We want to use this grant fund as a means to support rescue shelters to meet the demand in cases where pets are unfortunately being given up for adoption. We also want to help educate potential adopters on the benefits of exploring this alternative route. As we continue to grow as a business, we hope that we can also expand our capacity to support other areas of work.

Charities are invited to re-apply for a grant following a successful or unsuccessful submission, but should not anticipate that this second application will be successful.

Charities are invited to apply for a grant ranging from £1,000 to £12,500. Applications will be assessed on a rolling basis, and charities requesting a larger grant will need to ensure that they have sufficient information and evidence to support their application.

No. Successful grant awards do not need to be paid back.

The only requirement is that applicants use the grant for legitimate purposes, as outlined in their application. The primary goal is to ensure that these grants go towards supporting the work to facilitate the rehoming of cats and dogs in the UK.

Please find a link here to our application form. Once completed, you'll receive an automatic response to notify you of your submission.

For support with your application, visit our Application Guidance page.

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis meaning there is no official deadline. Only once we have reached our funding limit will we close the application process. Look out for more details on our website and social media.

Applications are being assessed on a rolling basis. Unfortunately, if you have not received a response from us after 6 weeks of submitting your application, it is unlikely you have been successful. Though please feel free to apply for the following year, if you have not been successful during this round.

It is important that we understand where, how and why you want grant support for your project. As well as understanding how this aligns with Waggel’s mission and objectives. 

We created an application form guidance document to help guide you through the application and the information required. This can be found here.

At the moment, the application form is hosted through Typeform which means if you leave the page before submitting your form, your responses will be lost.

Once you've submitted your application, you should receive an automated response to acknowledge we've received it.

We will let applicants know if they have been successful and will reach out via the email address provided in the application. Unfortunately, due to the volume of applications we may receive we will not be able to provide feedback to unsuccessful applicants.

We have a number of stakeholders across the organisation that will support the process of reviewing applications. These individuals will vary from senior leadership to our Customer Champions.

Applications will be reviewed based on how well projects align with the mission and objectives of Waggel as a business. We want to make sure that any projects being presented to us will ultimately support our goal to facilitate the rehoming of cats and dogs and the education of potential adopters. 

The number of applications is likely to exceed the funding available, so Waggel will use the following criteria to help in making decisions on how best to allocate funding:

- Purpose: What is the goal and objective behind the work your organisation is doing? How does this align with Waggel in terms of supporting the rehoming of cats and/or dogs?

- Effectiveness: How are you working towards delivering information, support and/or services relating to the adoption and rehoming of pets in your community in a viable and sustainable way?

- Impact: How can you demonstrate that your organisation will deliver against the objectives you have laid out and work towards facilitating the rehoming process and supporting pets and adopters in the process? 

Should you have any questions regarding our charity work or the application process, please email us at [email protected]