1. Introduction to the Turn2us Grants Search
Who is this guide for?
This guide is for charitable funds who are listed or want to be listed on the Turn2us Grants Search. It explains more about what the tool is, how it works and how to use the charity account features.
Looking for grants?
If you are looking for grants to help you or someone else, please see our Grants Search.
What is the Turn2us Grants Search?
The Turn2us Grants Search database contains details of over 1,500 charitable funds that give grants as well as other support to individuals who may:
The charity's profile provides information about the charity, who it helps, what it helps with and how to apply. It is also tagged to match the eligibility criteria, including age, gender, location, occupation, health conditions, religion and/or nationality. This helps to narrow down the search to match the person's background and circumstances to funds that may be able to help them. It also means the charity should only get enquiries from people that match its qualifying rules.
Where a charity has chosen to include our online enquiry feature, users can also make enquiries directly to the charity through Turn2us.
Charity 'My Turn2us' accounts
Every charity listed on the Grants Search has its own ‘My Turn2us’ account through which it can update its profile and, where appropriate, manage online enquiries from individuals and intermediaries.
Registering your charity on the Grants Search
At the moment, we list the following types of organisations:
- Non-for-profit organisations, usually registered charities or trusts, that provide funds for people in financial hardship
- Utility providers, such as water, gas and electricity, that provide support specifically to their customers or general support. There must be no commercial obligation on the recipient in order to receive help.
If your organisation fits one of the categories above and you would like to add it to our Grants Search, please complete our Charities/Providers Grants Search registration form.
Once we receive the completed registration form, we will contact you regarding the setting up of your Turn2us account. This may take up to five working days.
If you administer more than one charity
Please let us know if you are responsible for more than one charity/organisation and want to be listed as the contact (provider user) for all the charities you manage.
Each charity/organisation will have its own profile on the Grants Search.
In terms of managing the account, the provider user will only have one login and will be able to control all the charity/organisation accounts through this.
What is the cost?
Having a listing on our Grants Search is free of charge to charities and trusts.
If you have any questions
If you have any questions about our Grants Search and/or charity accounts, please email us at: dshelp@turn2us.org.uk
2. Accessing and using your Turn2us charity account
To log into your account, you need your user name (which will usually an email address) and password.
If you do not know these, contact us on email: dshelp@turn2us.org.uk
When you have your login details, click on ‘Log in’ in the top right hand corner of any page of the website or on the 'My Turn2us' option on the main navigation bar.
This will take you to the ‘My Turn2us’ login page.
Enter your user name and password. Click the ‘Login’ button. (See Screengrab below.)
This will take you to the Turn2us Charity Account Homepage. (See Screengrab below.)
Using your Turn2us charity account
Once you have logged into your Charities/Providers account, you can manage your account, profile and enquiries using the My Turn2us area.
If you administer one charity
To select what you want to do, hover your mouse over the My Turn2us option on the main navigation bar at the top of the screen. The My Turn2us navigation list for Charities/Providers will appear. (See Screengrab below). You can then click on the option you want.
If you administer more than one charity
When you have logged into your charity account, click the MyTurn2us menu and choose the charitable fund you want to administer from the dropdown menu on the left-hand side of the screen (See Screengrab below). Once you have selected the fund you want, you can then choose the relevant option from the My Turn2us menu.
Options available
Managing your profile
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Update MyTurn2us account: Allows you to update your user profile, change your email address and password or request deletion of a provider (user not your charity)
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Add user: Add an additional user to your profile
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Remove my organisation from the Grants Search: Request the deletion of your charity's profile and all schemes, user accounts and enquiries associated with it.
Updating your profile
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Update organisation contact details: Allows you to update your organisation's contact details and enquiry settings
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Update your fund: View and edit the profile for any schemes (funds) that are attached to your profile.
Managing enquiries (if you have opted to receive online enquiries through Turn2us)
Other
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Favourites: View pages you have saved as favourites on the Turn2us website
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MyTurn2us homepage: Takes you back to the landing page for charity accounts
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Sign Out: Sign out of your charity/provider account.
3. Update organisation contact details
If you click 'Update organisation contact details' on the MyTurn2us navigation bar, this takes you to a page where you can update your organisation's contact details.
Fill in the relevant sections of the form and then click 'Update' at the bottom of the form (after enquiry settings). The fields marked with asterisks are mandatory so your changes won't get made unless you fill in these sections.
Changing enquiry settings
At the bottom of this page, you can change your enquiry settings.
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Accepting online enquiries: you accept online enquiries through Turn2us using the Turn2us enquiry form
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Intermediary only enquiries: your profile is only visible to intermediaries who are logged into their Turn2us intermediary accounts.
4. Update your fund
The 'Update your fund' section allows you to view and update any funds (schemes) attached to your profile. You can also add funds.
Editing a fund
Click 'Edit' against the fund you want to edit. This will take you to a form that has all the information about the fund on it. (See Screengrab below.)
This will take you to the 'Update fund (scheme)' form for the fund. (See Screengrab below.)
The form is divided into several sections. (See Screengrab above.)
General information
Just fill in the fields and click 'Save'.
Enquiry gate
If you want to, you can put an enquiry gate on your profile (see Screengrab above). This means that before a person using the Grants Search can access your contact details or make an online enquiry to your fund through Turn2us (if you accept them), they have to confirm that they meet the eligibility criteria.
Just tick the box that says 'Display enquiry gate' and fill in the box that says 'Eligibility Short Description'.
Then click 'Save'.
Description fields
The description fields in this section include:
Just fill in the fields and click 'Save'.
Custom fields (charities that accept online enquiries through Turn2us only)
If you accept online enquiries through Turn2us, you can add up to three 'custom' questions to the Turn2us grant enquiry form in this section. For example, if you are charity helping people who worked in a particular industry, you might want to know which company or sector they worked in. If you are a charity that helps members of a particular trade organisation or union, you might want to know what their membership number is.
To add questions in this field, click on the tab that says 'Custom fund questions'. (Screengrab below.)
An accordion will open out which allows you to add up to three questions relating to your fund. ( below.)
Add the first question in the Question 1 text box.
If you want it to be a 'required question' that the enquirer has to answer, tick the 'required question box'.
You can also choose what kind of text box you want to appear on the enquiry form:
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Standard textbox - for questions that require a short answer (box one and three on the Screengrab below)
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Multiline textbox - for questions that require a longer answer (box two on the Screengrab below).
Do the same for questions 2 and 3. Then click 'Save' at the bottom of the form.
The questions will then appear at the bottom of the Turn2us grant online enquiry form when someone makes an enquiry to your particular charity. (Screengrab below). The ones marked with an asterisk are 'required' so the person has to fill these in before submitting the form.
Tagging
There are some details that Turn2us needs to change for you, including tagging for:
dshelp@turn2us.org.uk
Adding a new fund
You can also add a new fund (scheme) to your charity's/provider's profile if you need to.
Just click the 'Add new scheme' button on the Update your fund landing page (See Screengrab below).
This brings up a form for you to fill in. The sections are the same as for editing a fund described above.
Fill in details of your fund and then click 'Save'.
5. Update MyTurn2us Account or Add Users
When your charity's account with Turn2us is created, we also set up a 'provider user' account in the name of someone from your organisation who is the grants contact.
This gives them login details that they can use to go into your charity's account to update your profile and manage any enquiries that you receive (if you have opted to receive online enquiries).
Updating your account
If you click 'Update MyTurn2us account' on the navigation bar (see Screengrab above), this takes you to a page where you can update your own user profile.
On this page you can change:
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The name of the person who is the grants contact for your charity
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The email address for this person. Once you have changed this, the new email address will become the username for the person's account
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Your password.
Just fill in the relevant sections of the form and then click 'Save'.
Deleting your personal profile
You may want to delete your own user account, perhaps because you are leaving the organisation; you are no longer the person for the charity who deals with grant applications; or for some other reason.
To request the deletion of your account, go to the bottom of the 'Update my profile' page where it says 'Delete Account', fill in the text box and click the 'Delete' button.
Add User
If more than one person in your organisation wants access to the charity account, you can add additional users.
To do this, an existing provider user for your charity needs to log into their Turn2us account.
When they are logged in, they should go to the 'My Turn2us' tab on the main menu and hover the mouse over it so the sub-menu appears. Click 'Add admin user'. (See Screengrab at the top of the page.)
The 'Add User' page will appear.
Just fill in the form and click 'Save'. Please note: You can't use the same email address as any other provider users for your charity.
You will get a confirmation message onscreen and the new provider user will get an email asking them to confirm their registration within seven days by clicking the link in the email. Once they have done this, their account is ready to use.
6. Receiving online enquiries from Turn2us
Charitable funds can opt to accept enquiries through the Turn2us Grants Search.
This means enquirers (who may be individuals or intermediaries) can make an enquiry directly to the charity using the Turn2us online enquiry form. (See Screengrab at the bottom of this page)
If you want to accept online enquiries through Turn2us, please email us at: dshelp@turn2us.org.uk and we will enable your profile to receive them as soon as possible.
Once this has been done, there will be a button on the right-hand side of the screen on your profile saying 'Enquire online'. (See Screengrab below).
7. Viewing enquiries
When an individual or intermediary makes an enquiry to your charity, you will receive an automatic notification. (See Screengrab below)
To view the new enquiry, you can either:
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Click on the link in the email that says "View the new enquiry in MyTurn2us' (you will have to log into your account before you can view it) (See first Screengrab below)
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Log directly into your charity's account and view the enquiry in My Turn2us/Enquiries. (See second Screengrab below)
Selecting an enquiry
Once you are logged into your account and have clicked on the Enquiries tab in My Turn2us, you will see a list of enquiries. (See Screengrab below.)
On the line of the enquiry you want to view, click 'View enquiry'. (Circled on the Screengrab below.)
This will bring up the Turn2us form enquiry form for this enquiry.
If you are the administrator (provider user) for more than one charity
If you are the provider user for more than one charity, before you do the steps above to select the enquiry you want to look at, you need to choose the particular charity that the enquiry belongs to.
After you have logged in, click 'My Turn2us' on the top bar so that the My Turn2us menu appears.
You will see a charity dropdown on the left-hand side of the screen. Select the charity you want to administer. (See Screengrab below.)
Then follow the steps for selecting an enquiry.
Exporting a list of your online enquiries
You can also export a list of the enquiries you have received online through Turn2us for the last 12 months.
When you are logged into your account, go to the Enquiries section of My Turn2us.
Click the link that says 'Export report to excel'. This will create a spreadsheet that you can open or save. (See Screengrabs below.)
8. Replying to enquiries
When you have read through the enquiry and are ready to respond, you can respond in two ways:
Choose the appropriate button at the bottom of the enquiry form.
Respond online (through Turn2us)
If you choose 'Respond online', this means you will be sending a message to the enquirer online through Turn2us.
You will see a form that includes:
Select the status from the drop-down menu. For more information, see the Update Enquiry Status section on this page.
If you select 'More info requested', you can include details of what you need in the message you send the enquirer.
Write your message to the enquirer and press the 'Send' button.
You will see a confirmation page with a link to take you back to your enquiry list.
Messages
The enquirer will receive a notification that you have messaged them.
You can see the messages you have sent and any that you receive in the Messages section of 'My Turn2us'.
Respond offline
If you click the 'Respond offline' button, this means you will respond to the enquirer by phone, letter or email outside of the Turn2us system. You will be taken to a page that asks you to update the status.
Update Enquiry Status
Select the correct status from the drop-down list:
There are six options you can choose from:
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Rejected the enquiry: The person is not eligible for your help.
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More info requested: you are going to contact the enquirer because you cannot proceed without additional information. This would be by direct email, phone or letter but the status shows the stage you are at
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Accepted the enquiry: All the information you require has been provided and you are going to make a decision next.
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Grant given: You have approved and decided to award a grant. If you choose this option, the system will then provide you with a field to input the amount you have awarded
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Grant not given: You have decided not to give a grant, even if the person meets your eligibility criteria. The form will provide you with the space to say why the grant was not awarded
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Applicant did not respond: This will probably be after the “more information required” step and the enquirer has not responded to your attempts at contacting them.
Please note: you will need to scroll up or down on the side bar at the right of the options to see all six - not all of them are shown in the Screengrab above).
When you have chosen your option, click the 'Save' button at the bottom of the page.
Confirmation page
You will see a confirmation page with a link to take you back to your enquiry list.
Replying to enquiries from someone who does not have an email address
Sometimes you will get an enquiry from someone who does not have an email address. The 'contact email' fields on the form will be blank. (See Screengrab below). In many cases, this will be because one of our Turn2us helpline advisers has filled in the enquiry form on the person's behalf.
If the enquirer does not have an email address, there won't be a 'Reply to enquiry' button at the bottom. Instead you will see a message that advises you that they do not have email (See Screengrab below). There will however be a phone number and a postal address to contact the person.
Updating the status of the enquiry later on
You can update the status of a record at any time by clicking on the update option against the relevant enquiry on the Enquiries page.
This will show you all of the options on the drop-down box again and allow you to update the status.
If you originally chose 'Respond via MyTurn2us messages' from the 'Response type' drop-down menu, you will need to change the option to 'Respond directly (outside MyTurn2us)' (see Screengrab 1 below) before clicking 'update' in the Status column. This is to make sure that you don't get the form that sends a message to the enquirer as well updating the status. The form you should see is shown in Screengrab 2 below.
9. Messages through Turn2us
The messages tab allows you to receive and send messages from enquirers who have used the Turn2us online enquiry form to make contact with your charity.
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Inbox: Allows you to see any messages you have received (unless they have been deleted or archived)
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Sent: Contains all the enquiries that you have sent (unless they have been deleted or archived)
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Archive: Shows you all the emails that you have archived (unless you have deleted them).
Viewing a message
In the subject line, click on the link of the enquiry that you want to view.
Please note: If it is a new message or enquiry that you haven't read, it will have an envelope at the beginning of the subject line. This icon will disappear when you have read the enquiry or message.
When you click on the link, you should see an 'enquiry submitted page' like the one below.
To view the enquiry, click the link (circled above).
This will open up a Turn2us enquiry form. (See Viewing enquiries for more details)
See Replying to enquiries for information on how to respond.
Sending a message via the 'new message' link
If you want to send an email to someone who has made an enquiry through Turn2us, you can also use the 'new message link' to do this.
Just click on the 'new message link' at the bottom right of the messages page (circled below).
This brings up a reply page (see below).
Select the person you want to send the message to by clicking the downward arrow at the end of the 'To' box.
Type your subject and message and then click the 'Send' button.
Archiving a message
To archive a message, click the tick box on the line of the enquiry that you want to archive (see example below). Then click the archive button at the bottom of the page. The message will be moved into the archive box. (See Screengrab below.)
You can view your archived messages by clicking the Archive Inbox (see image below)
Deleting a message
To delete a message, select the message that you want to delete.
Click the delete button at the bottom of the screen.
This will delete the message.
10. Other Turn2us services
Turn2us Tools
Don't forget that you can also use Turn2us tools when working with your clients.
These include:
The Turn2us Grants Search: to find other charitable funds that may be able to share the cost of expensive items that individuals you are helping need
The Turn2us Benefits Calculator can help you check their entitlement to welfare benefits
The Turn2us 'Find an Adviser' tool can help you locate advisers relevant to your clients' particular needs and location.
Turn2us Charity User Group
Turn2us' Charity User Group, involving charities that provide welfare and/or educational grants to individuals listed on our Grants Search, meets every three months in London.
As well as providing opportunities to share information and experiences with colleagues in the charitable fund sector, the group offers guidance and expertise to help with the development of the Turn2us Grants Search and other services.
For more information, email: Sonya Ruparel, Director of Programmes and Partnerships, at: sonia.ruparel@turn2us.org.uk
Turn2us Intermediary Accounts
You may also be interested in having a Turn2us intermediary account. This will enable you to use the intermediary features of the Turn2us Benefits Calculator and Grants Search to help individuals you are supporting to:
- Identify means-tested benefits they may be entitled
- Find other charitable funds to share the cost of expensive items/provide additional support.
Read our Intermediaries User Guide for more information
Register for an intermediaries account (Please note: You have to register with a different email address from the one registered for your charity account, as the system does not allow an email address to have more than one account).
Read our Website Privacy Policy
Publicising your charity through Turn2us
Charities often ask Turn2us if we can help them publicise their services in order to increase the reach of the work they do.
We may be able to help you through the following opportunities.
Grants Spotlight (monthly feature)
Turn2us 'Grants Spotlight' is a monthly feature that Turn2us offers to charitable funds listed on our Grants Search database.
The aim is to publicise the work of the charity to Turn2us users.
It is free of charge to charitable funds and charities.
Find out more about Turn2us Grants Spotlight
Guest blogs or news stories
We are also always looking for guest blogs from charities, especially if their work goes with our current campaigns or subjects we are focusing on our website.
If you have news about your charity, such as an anniversary, new services or a new campaign, we may be able to feature this in the news section of our website and through social media.
Please note however that we cannot feature fundraising campaigns from other charities.
Read the Turn2us Guest Blog Brief for Charities (Word file)
To discuss this further, please contact us at email: dshelp@turn2us.org.uk
Further information or help
If you need any help with using Turn2us services, please email: dshelp@turn2us.org.uk.
Give us your feedback
We would also welcome feedback about the usefulness and clarity of this Charity User Guide. If you don't understand how to do something or would like more information on a particular aspect of the Grants Search or other Turn2us services, please contact us at email: grantsfeedback@turn2us.org.uk
Useful resources for charitable funds
Last updated: March 2020