City Bridge Foundation to close new grant applications for a year
Melanie May | 24 September 2024 | News
City Bridge Foundation, London’s biggest independent funder, has announced that it is closing its grants programmes for a year. This is due to an unprecedented surge in demand, and comes ahead of a major funding review.
City Bridge Foundation says the closure will enable it to process hundreds of outstanding applications as an extra £200 million in funding made available five years ago comes to an end.
Current grant holders will not be affected, and new applications received by noon on Tuesday 8 October will still be considered against the current criteria.
Advertisement
The foundation has also said that the year-long closure won’t impact strategic programmes such as its suicide prevention work. Collaborative and cross-sector funding programmes including the Anchor and Propel programmes, which provide strategic funding for umbrella charities, will also be unaffected.
New 10 year funding policy to launch
The pause comes ahead of a new 10-year funding policy, which is due to launch next year, aimed at offering a more focused approach.
Giles Shilson, City Bridge Foundation Chairman, said:
“This is not a decision we take lightly and we don’t underestimate the impact it will have on some charities who may miss out on funding.
“However, the unprecedented demand we’re facing means that we already have more applications than we’re able to fund, and we don’t want charities to spend time on applications unlikely to be successful.
“The extra £200 million we’ve been able to provide over the last five years played a vital role during Covid, the cost-of-living crisis and the many other challenges the sector has faced, but this funding is now coming to an end.
“Closing our programmes for a year means we can clear the backlog of applications and allocate funding where it’s most needed, before we launch our new funding policy.”
Grant funding to return to ‘normal levels’ in 2026/27
The additional £200 million was approved in 2019 following a review of the charity’s reserves and resulted in a 75-90% success rate in grant applications, depending on grant programme.
Extra funding from this ‘uplift’ will gradually reduce over the next two years, with grant funding returning to normal levels of around £30 million a year in 2026-27.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.