On the #63
Funding for the Jilted Generation - Wider Research Edition - Headlines
There is a whole filing cabinet of great research out there that tells us about the state of trust and foundation fundraising in the UK. Here are my go to references. Make sure that tea is strong!
Government funding accounted for around 37% of total sector income in 2009/10, but now represents closer to 26%. Over the same period, local authority funding to charities has fallen by around 23% in real terms.
The UK Charity Sector 2026 Pressures, Patterns and Priorities A White Paper for CEOs and Senior Leadership Teams What the Evidence Shows (2021–2026) April 2026Momentum Maker Research Insights on leadership, organisational readiness and sector change
62% of charities believe that they do not receive the full value it costs to deliver a public sector contract, with the average charity contributing 35% the value of a contract. Estimated that charities prop up state services by £2.4bn a year.
State of the Sector 2024: Ready for a reset
Around two in five organisations reported a decrease in income from local authority grants (38%), compared with one in five reporting an increase (19%). One in three reported decreases in income from trusts and foundations (36%), with one in five seeing increases (19%).
Financial Pressures and the Funding Landscape by Dr Ben Evans , January 2026 Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise Sector Barometer
Across every income band, the proportion of charities bidding for and delivering public sector contracts is at its lowest level since the survey began. Among larger organisations (£5m–£25m income), the figure has fallen from 64% in 2019 to 50% in 2025.many organisations have concluded that public contracts cost more to win and manage than they return.
Third Sector Trends in England and Wales 2025
Over half of organisations (51%) reported using reserves to meet operating costs in the past 12 months. Among those doing so, reserves were most commonly used to cover general operating costs (76%) and to plug gaps in funding (35%).Over a quarter used reserves to subsidise non-contracted services (27%), while others drew on them to accommodate increased demand (24%), manage unplanned or emergency costs (19%), or subsidise government contracts that did not cover delivery costs (17%).
Financial Pressures and the Funding Landscape by Dr Ben Evans , January 2026 Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise Sector Barometer
The latest edition shows that more than 14,000 grantmakers distributed £24 billion in grants during 2024–25, with total grantmaking increasing by 4% compared with the previous year. Trusts and Foundations grantmaking increases steadily: Grantmaking for Trusts and Foundations (excluding Wellcome Trust) remains the largest category and grew by 5% to £7.4bn.
Philanthropic grants from Trusts & Foundations and DAFs totalled over £10bn.The rise of Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs): DAFs are becoming a substantial part of the voluntary and community sector’s income with grantmaking in 2024-25 at £2.4bn, an 8% increase since 2023-24 and 29% increase since 2022-23
UKGrantmaking 2026
Find out more, explore the data, and see the full findings on the UKGrantmaking 2026 website.
Overall, in 2023-2024 more than 14,000 grantmakers gave over £23bn, a 7% increase compared to the previous year, representing around 18-22% of the sector’s income. Trusts and foundations have overtaken government bodies as the largest source of grant income to the voluntary and community sector – although government remains the main provider of contract income. Indeed, grantmaking by Trusts and Foundations increased by 12% compared to the previous year to £8.2bn
Government no longer largest source of grant income to charity sector,Civil Society Media, June 2025
Funders operating grant schemes capped at £5,000 are often facing a disproportionately high volume of applications from across the sector.
2025 Trusts and Foundations Insights Survey, Konna Beeson, Senior Fundraising Consultant at Gifted Philanthropy
There is a clear difference between cold and repeat funders for success rates (24.5% vs 63.39%) as well as income raised (£120k vs £207k). This represents warm/repeat applications having a 2.58x greater success rate vs cold, and 1.72x greater income vs cold applications.
2025 Trusts and Foundations Insights Survey, Konna Beeson, Senior Fundraising Consultant at Gifted Philanthropy
Clear drop-off in success rates, and income raised, after approximately 30 applications sent per year. is that overall, the more applications sent, the lower the success rate
2025 Trusts and Foundations Insights Survey, Konna Beeson, Senior Fundraising Consultant at Gifted Philanthropy
For charities between £300k-£1m in size specifically, spending 20-30% of time on research resulted in a 44% success rate and £105k income from cold funders vs a 20% success rate and £55k income for those spending less than 20% of time on research, or too much.
2025 Trusts and Foundations Insights Survey, Konna Beeson, Senior Fundraising Consultant at Gifted Philanthropy
England & Wales has lost a net 818 grant-making trusts and foundations since 2020, a 4.2% contraction of the funder population. Of the 19,677 funders currently registered, 2,940 have been removed from the register and 2,122 new ones have joined. The registration rate has not kept pace with removals for two consecutive years, and the backlog of Charity Commission removals means more closures are still being processed.
The UK Trust Landscape Report 2026 Granted Giving
The top 100 funders, just 0.5% of the UK total, control 58% of all grant expenditure. The top 1% control two-thirds. 71% of funders spend under £100,000 per year.
The UK Trust Landscape Report 2026 Granted Giving
42.7% of all UK funders exclusively fund a single cause. 57.3% fund multiple themes8,406 of 19,677 registered funders list just one cause area. These are your highest-probability targets. The other 57.3% fund multiple themes, meaning your application competes against bids from every other cause they support.
The UK Trust Landscape Report 2026l Granted Giving
Only 14.9% of new funders list health as an interest, compared to 29.3% of those that closed and 25.3% of all registered funders, a 14.4 percentage point drop.
Overseas aid has experienced a near-complete collapse in new funder formation: just 1.5% of new funders versus 15.6% of closed funders, a 14.1percentage point decline. Education has dropped 12.0 percentage points.
Disability is the standout gainer at +3.6 percentage points, with 23.8% of new funders listing it versus 18.6% of all registered funders.
The UK Trust Landscape Report 2026l Granted Giving
Not all causes face the same level of competition for trust funding. Recreation has 31.3 charities competing for every funder, Armed Forces has 2.9 and Arts / Culture / Heritage / Science have 11.2 charities competing for every funder.
The UK Trust Landscape Report 2026l Granted Giving
On the main UK Grantmaking database, the median grant is just over £13,000. It’s a bit lower than that in my sample (£10,000), even when you remove donation-style micro-grants of under £1,000. I also took out Lottery distributors here because their £10k grants are such a big chunk.
77% of grants are under £30k.
Something’s gotta give: foundations and small charities, Oliver French November 2025
➡️ Success rates range from 0.5% to nearly 100%
➡️ Median success rate: around 16-17%
➡️ 25% of funders sit below roughly 9%
➡️ 25% sit above around 40%
➡️Two-stage processes don’t dramatically improve the odds
Lucy Stone Funder Success Rates
Caroline Richardson over at The Nest Egg has been collecting data and conducting a fundraising return on investment (ROI) benchmarking study through LarkOwl for five years, having started the initiative in 2019
ROI for Trust and Foundations;
2026 £8.38
2025 £9.20
2021 £10.69
2020 £10.05
Go and read the latest reports here;
Fundraising ROIs 2026
Trust fundraising success rates 2025
Fundraising ROI’s 2025.
Further Reading
Tune in , Spend Out- A record of peer learning with time-limited grantmakers , Oliver French
Funders and small charities, Episode II: Peak Philanthropy March 5, 2026, Oliver French
‘Doing more with less’, April 2025 by Rebecca Moran and Ben Cairns, Institute For Voluntary Action Research
Towards Open and Trusting Grant-making. London: Institute for Voluntary Action Research.Mills, C., Green, G. and Cairns, B. (2025)
Underfunded and Overlooked | The Centre for Social Justice
The Brutal Facts — Fundraising Training Ltd
Things do not seem to be improving. - SCVO
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