Charity Commission issues new grant-making guidance

Howard Lake | 11 June 2026 | News

• Tagged with:
• Charity Commission
• funding
• grants
• Law / policy

The Charity Commission has published updated guidance to help charity trustees make confident, responsible grant-making decisions. The release arrives at a time when many organisations across England and Wales face sustained financial pressure and increased service demand.

Expanding on previous documentation, the guidance now covers all forms of grant-making. It explicitly details the flexibility available to grant-making charities to provide unrestricted funding to organisations with similar or narrower purposes. This approach allows recipient charities the freedom to allocate funds where needed most, including covering core operating costs or responding to shifting beneficiary needs.

Regulatory expectations and risk management

The revised guidance also addresses funding for non-charitable organisations, noting that such partnerships can help extend impact into communities where few registered charities operate. However, because non-charities are subject to different regulatory frameworks, the Commission emphasises that trustees must take reasonable steps to assess and manage potential risks.

In all instances, grant-making organisations are required to implement written agreements and monitor recipients to ensure compliance with agreed terms. Trustees are expected to conduct appropriate due diligence checks to verify that potential recipient organisations are genuine and operate transparently.

Rising sector demand

The guidance update forms part of the regulator’s wider strategy to support effective philanthropy. Commission data from 2024 reveals that 32,661 charities reported grant-making activities, awarding a total of £17.84 billion. This represents an increase from the £16.97 billion awarded in 2023. Despite this growth in funding, annual return data highlights an ongoing financial squeeze, which coincides with a three-fold increase in demand for charitable services.

Mazeda Alam, Head of Trustee Guidance at the Charity Commission, commented that the guidance is designed to give philanthropists and grant-makers the flexibility to use their best judgement when awarding funds, allowing them to support the sector confidently.

She added:

“Any funding decision must ultimately be driven by one question: will this help the grant-making charity further its purpose, and make a difference to the people and causes it exists to serve? This guidance gives trustees assurance that they can answer that question, and to make decisions that are both bold and responsible.”

Trustees can access the complete regulatory guidance and further details on annual return statistics on the Gov.uk website.

• Charity Commission launches revised fundraising guidance CC20 (3 February 2026)
  
• Charity Commission updates its emergency appeal guidance CC40 (27 February 2026)
  
• David Holdsworth announced as new Charity Commission CEO (8 February 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.