Foundation income down but grant-making rises by 10%
Howard Lake | 5 May 2014 | News
A report published last week by the Association of Charitable Foundations details the giving trends of the top 300 UK grant-making foundations.
The research shows that grant-making is up in real-terms by 9.8%, despite a fall in income across the sample. Speaking at the launch, Cathy Pharaoh of the Centre for Giving and Philanthropy at the Cass Business School called the report “a new departure in presenting foundation information”.
The data for the report was provided by Charity Financials.
Conclusions drawn include:
- foundation giving to charitable causes grew by £271 million, or 10%, whilst income fell by the same amount.
- foundations make up £2.4 billion or 14% of the £17.5 billion given annually to charities from private sources.
Top 300 foundations represent 90% of the value of all private foundation giving: Association of Charitable Foundations
Care is taken to avoid bias in the report despite a recognition that the sector is inherently skewed. For example the largest grant maker in the study, the Wellcome Trust, gave £511 million last year, while 87% of the 300 give less than £10 million annually.
A concluding section comparing the US with the UK presents a positive picture of foundations becoming of increasing importance in the UK.
The report, published by the Association of Charitable Foundations, is first in the Foundation Giving Trends series and builds on the success of its companion Family Foundations Giving Trends.
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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.