Funding developments in December 2025
Howard Lake | 16 December 2025 | News
December sees the final disbursement of funding from The Foyle Foundation, established in 2000 in the will of the former owner of Foyles bookshop. The London Marathon Foundation reports on its total of grants made in 2025, Altruist sunscreen marks its 10th anniversary of grants to albinism charities, and GoFibre’s GoFurther Fund is back supporting charities in the Scottish Borders.
GoFibre’s GoFurther Fund
Borders-based broadband provider GoFibre has announced the return of its GoFurther Fund, giving local charities, community groups, and organisations across the Scottish Borders the chance to apply for grants of up to £3,000 for projects that deliver lasting social impact.
This latest funding pot, totalling to £12,000, is part of GoFibre’s wider social impact strategy, designed to help communities thrive in the areas where it delivers its full-fibre broadband network.
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The funding will support projects that focus on Environmental Benefit, Community Wellbeing, Education and Skills, or Internet Safety and Digital Inclusion.
Applications to the GoFurtherFund close at 5pm on Wednesday 31st January 2026.
London Marathon Foundation awards £9.98 million in 2025
The London Marathon Foundation has awarded £9.98 million across its programmes in 2025, the highest annual total since before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Of this it has awarded more than £1.87 million to inspire activity in London since April 2025.
Since 1981, the Foundation has channelled £117 million into sport and physical activity, helping children, young people and adults across the UK lead healthier, more active lives.
In October the Foundation published a Group Impact Report with its events company, London Marathon Events (LME), sharing how collectively they’re using sport and physical activity as a force for good.
Altruist donates over £300,000 of sunscreen to albinism charities in its 10th year
Dermatologist skincare brand Altruist has this year donated more than 65,000 tubes of sunscreen, worth over £300,000, to charities.
Created 10 years ago by consultant dermatologist and skin cancer expert Dr Andrew Birnie and Dutch economist David Westerbeek van Eerten, Altruist has now donated over £1.4 million of sunscreen.
The business works to reduce the incidence of skin cancer around the world by creating high-quality sun protection “that is accessible, affordable and effective for all”.
For every product sold 10p is donated for every product sold. Income enables the organisation to send prducts to charities that support children with albinism in Africa, who face extreme sun exposure and significant social challenges.
Altruist works with charity partners like Standing Voice to ensure the products reaches those who need them most, along with helping to educate communities about life-saving safe sun practices.
Foyle Foundation completes spend-down
******************************@**.png” alt=”The Foyle Foundation logo” class=”wp-image-337153″/>The Foyle Foundation is completing a long-planned “spend down” of its assets, officially closing its doors this month after 25 years of operation.
The final tranch of grants worth £2.2 million has been distributed to a network of community foundations across the UK, coordinated via UK Community Foundations, to ensure a lasting legacy for local grassroots projects.
By the time it winds down at the end of 2025, the foundation will have distributed more than £185 million to over 7,000 charities and schools.
The Foyle Foundation was established in 2000 to implement the will of Christina Foyle, the former owner of the Foyles bookshop in London. She was the daughter of William Foyle who, with his brother, founded the bookshop in Charing Cross Road.
The will provided an endowment of around £60 million. The assets were mainly property holdings, some stock market investments and a holding in her father’s library which was sold.
The Foyle Foundation has been one of the UK’s most significant supporters of the arts and learning, as well as providing small grants to state schools for library books and equipment.
The decision to close was made several years ago, with the trustees opting to spend the full endowment within a generation to provide more substantial support to charities during periods of economic volatility rather than maintaining a permanent, smaller annual fund.
- Altruist sunscreen generates over €100,000 for children’s charities in Africa (23 May 2020)
- Altruist sunscreen brand reaches €1 million in charity donations (11 January 2024)
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.