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There are around 2,000 grantmakers in the UK that make grants to individuals and families, with the majority being very small – over 500 of them distributing under £5,000 a year.
Less data is available on grants to individuals than grants to institutions. At the time of analysis, the Charity Commission for England and Wales (CCEW) had yet to release the new fields in the annual return 2023 which include the amount of grants to individuals. Very limited data is available from local authorities, so amounts for local schemes including the Community Chest are not available. We did not include universities as a funder group in the research, but some provide bursaries and welfare support for students from endowments and other funds.
It is estimated that the total amount of grants to individuals is approximately £400 million a year.
Our analysis includes just over 2,000 organisations that make grants to individuals. The 295 largest of these, where data on grants to individuals is available, distributed over £300m. Of these, over half also distributed grants to institutions.
It is unsurprising that the member/trade funded organisations contribute the largest amount given that this group includes benevolent funds and livery companies providing support to their members, but also making contributions to the wider community.
Largest organisations
Below is the table of the largest 100 organisations by their grantmaking to individuals
The grants to individuals distributed by these 100 organisations totalled £274.4m – compared to £253.9m in the previous year. This represents a 7% increase in giving from the previous year but a real terms decrease of 2%.
Net assets of the group decreased by 6%. While 30 organisations increased their assets slightly, the majority reported a decrease. The three organisations with the largest decreases in net asset values, Arts Council England (£194m), Henry Smith Charity (£165m) and Paul Hamlyn Foundation (£40m), all increased their grantmaking to organisations during the year.
Below is the table of the largest 100 organisations by their grantmaking to individuals.
In March 2024, ACO had 122 members who spent £820m, including £226m in grants, of which £133m were distributed to individuals. Information, where available, is summarised below.
In 2023, 360Giving implemented changes to the 360Giving Data Standard to support the publication of grants to individuals. By May 2024, 10 grantmakers had shared data on grants to individuals, with 7 of them sharing data for the 2022-23 financial year.
There isn’t enough data to be able to draw conclusions or interpret the information on 2022-23 in any meaningful way, but in future editions of this report, we anticipate that we will provide analysis of the grantmaking by the number and size of grants, purpose of the grants, award reasons, geographical analysis and by deprivation indices to understand the targeting.
Organisations that provide grants to individuals often fly under the radar in terms of public awareness and yet play a vital role in providing critical support to individuals and families in financial hardship exacerbated by the current cost-of-living crisis.
ACO members have played a significant role in delivering this financial support: we represent a diverse range of organisations from poverty relief, occupational and armed forces charities through to illness and disability charities, regional trusts and charities representing specific beneficiaries (such as women, children and the elderly). This broad community of grantmakers has delivered over £200m of support in 2024, including over £130m directly to individuals and their families: from food vouchers and grants for vital household appliances/white goods through to support towards healthcare needs (such as home adaptations) and educational items (e.g. school uniforms).
In a clearly challenging economic landscape – with income streams understandably challenged by reduced income from both investments/endowments and fundraising activities – these charities have displayed remarkable resilience and the ability to actively innovate and collaborate to ensure they continue to meet increasing demand from their respective beneficiary audiences.
Digitalisation has played a key part in this – enabling charities to adapt and develop key elements of their business model ranging from increasing awareness and engagement through more targeted digital communications and refining application processes (e.g. increasingly moving online) to introducing more sophisticated grant management systems and introducing new support delivery channels.
At the heart of this sits the power of data. With increasing demand from charities to effectively evaluate the social and economic impact of their financial grantmaking, the ability to effectively capture, manage and analyse data remains a critical decision-guiding component shaping the strategic roadmap for these organisations. As such, the ability to publish and share grantmaking data on the 360Giving/UKGrantmaking platforms provides a vital opportunity to benchmark, assess and refine grant-making models.
Barnwood Trust
We are committed to transparent grant-making practices. We see real value in comparing our data with other similar organisations, and know that by publishing our own we help to drive forward the conversation about what more our sector can be doing to be more effective, equitable and strategic.
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Charity
Sharing data (via 360Giving) is an important step in living our values of being people-centred, learning-focused, and collaborative. Being more open in our grant funding helps us build trust with stakeholders, including the individuals we support, the frontline workers who apply on their behalf as well as our donors and other funders. Publishing our data also reflects our core value of learning and being open to scrutiny and feedback. It facilitates cooperation with other funders, helping us to work collectively towards our goal to prevent homelessness and provide the best support to those experiencing it.
Smallwood Trust
By contributing to 360Giving, Smallwood is fulfilling one of its IVAR commitments – being transparent about its decisions and sharing its data. It will help us report and monitor progress against our strategy, leading to informed decisions so that we can be more effective.
