City Bridge Foundation announces social justice fund in new 10-year funding policy
Howard Lake | 26 March 2025 | News
City Bridge Foundation, London’s biggest independent charity funder, has announced a 10-year policy, Standing with Londoners, which will focus on tackling the inequality and injustice that blights the capital.
The new policy has been drawn up following a year of engagement, research and consultation. It will offer long-term, core funding as a default, and unrestricted funding “where possible”. It will also include improved funding application processes, including pre-application phone calls to simplify the process.
City Bridge Foundation says the new policy, Standing with Londoners, will position it as a social justice funder, with a sharper focus on tackling the root causes of inequality.
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The foundation has awarded over £840 million in 30 years of funding London’s charity sector, including an extra £200 million funding which supported the sector through Covid and the cost-of-living crisis. This additional funding is now drawing to an end.
The foundation has already awarded around £60 million to organisations across the capital this financial year. It has already allocated £48 million for next year, including £15 million for the new funding policy.
Standing with Londoners
Standing With Londoners will focus on four key areas:
- delivering climate justice
- access to justice – including supporting people to access their rights and find solutions to a range of problems
- tackling racial injustice
- addressing economic inequality.
The policy will prioritise funding for community-led organisations, and build on the foundation’s long-standing commitment to infrastructure and capacity building support, and to boosting support for advocacy, community organising and policy change.
The foundation will work with sector partners to design and deliver the first funding programme under the new policy, which it hopes to launch in the autumn, with others to follow next year.
Funding changes
Last year the foundation closed its rolling grants programmes to new applications for a year, citing an ‘unprecedented surge’ in requests for funding. It will continue to assess and award grants under the old funding policy until summer 2025, while supporting over 1,400 organisations through active grants.
Sacha Rose-Smith, City Bridge Foundation chief funding director, said: “London has changed hugely in recent years as a result of the issues the capital has faced, and we need to change too, standing in solidarity with organisations working to deliver change.
“Our funding has had a huge impact in meeting the needs of Londoners for 30 years, but the changes the capital has seen, and the fact our extra £200 million uplift is coming to an end, means we need to focus our resources to deliver maximum impact.
“While we will continue to fund some work which address the immediate needs of Londoners, there will be a much greater emphasis – in response to a long-standing call from the sector – on tackling the root causes and systemic factors which enable inequality and injustice to prevail.
“Our ambitious 10-year policy marks an exciting new chapter in our journey as a social justice funder, working collaboratively with our partners to leverage change and standing shoulder to shoulder with Londoners to make the capital a fairer place.”
About City Bridge Foundation
City Bridge Foundation is responsible for five Thames crossings, including Tower Bridge, and is London’s biggest independent charity funder. Its sole trustee is the City of London Corporation, the governing body for the Square Mile.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.