The grantmaking picture
Here, we show the full spectrum of UK bodies who make grants to the voluntary sector, in five broad categories:
- Trusts and Foundations – UK trusts and foundations making grants, generally to charities and non-profit groups in the UK. Includes community foundations, family and corporate foundations, and others.
- Government – grantmaking by central, local, devolved government and Arms Length Bodies. Comprehensive data for local and devolved governments could not be sourced. An estimate has been provided for local authorities.
- National Lottery Distributors – grants made by the National Lottery distributors from National Lottery and other sources.
- Charities – grantmaking alongside other charitable activities or in the support of a single cause or institution.
- Other – Donor-Advised Funds and companies.
Devolved governments have been excluded due to a lack of reliable data.
The analysis on this page uses data from annual returns to charity regulators, charity and other accounts, and data published using the 360Giving Data Standard. More details are available in our methodology.
Total grantmaking by UK grantmakers
Number and size of UK grantmakers
Source: 360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators, charity and other accounts, and data published using the 360Giving Data Standard.
After an adjustment for potential double-counting between organisations within the segments due to regranting or double-reporting (as indicated in the table above), the total grantmaking in 2023-24 is estimated to be over £23bn – an increase of around 7% on the previous year.
Within each category, we have grouped grantmakers into different segments determined by the type of organisation they are. Further details can be found in the methodology. The below table sets out the number of grantmakers and their grantmaking spend by segment.
Number and size of UK grantmakers
Source: 360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators, charity and other accounts, and data published using the 360Giving Data Standard.
- *Local government and Company giving figures are estimates provided by the Directory of Social Change. No estimates are available for devolved governments.
- Known grants provided to other organisations for regranting includes amounts distributed through Donor Advised Funds from Trusts and Foundations included elsewhere in the tables to avoid double-counting in the total.
- The percentage change is calculated only for organisations with data in both years apart from the Central Government, where all are included due to departmental changes compared to the prior year.
The company giving figures in the table above include all contributions identified by the Directory of Social Change, excluding gifts-in-kind, so may be over-estimating the voluntary grant amount.
Regranting
Over recent years we have seen increasing funding flows between grantmakers. We have sought to explore the patterns of these flows to improve our understanding of the overall picture and any potential double-counting in the figures above, but also to be able to explore these trends in future years.
We have used the broad term ‘regranting’ to represent the flows of these finances, but it reflects a variety of practices. Some examples include:
- Major funding appeals which have engaged local funding partners to distribute funds in a specific area
- Collaborations between funders on shared programmes or pooled funds
- Funding provided to specialist organisations to distribute funds to members of specific communities
- Match funding schemes where one funder is matching the funds awarded by another to the same recipients
UK context
There is no definitive figure for the total amount of voluntary sector income in 2023-24 to compare these figures to. The total income of organisations registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland for 2023-24 is in excess of £100bn – including grantmakers – so this represents some double counting in income received by funding organisations that is then redistributed to other charitable organisations.
In the last year for which analysis is available (2021-22), NCVO estimated in the UK Civil Society Almanac 2024 that around 48% of sector income came from the public and 26% from government – including government contracts.
Further analysing the NCVO figures suggests that grantmaking represents an estimated 18-22% of sector income. This is in line with the level of grantmaking identified in this analysis. However, some of the grants in the UKGrantmaking totals are to small unregistered organisations, which are under-represented in the NCVO and regulator sector figures. In addition, Community Interest Companies and overseas organisations are included as grant recipients, but do not appear in NCVO’s sector profile.
Almanac figures are not yet available for 2023-24 to understand the picture for the sector. The Charity Commission for England & Wales shows an increase of 5.6% in the income for the registered organisations between 2022-23 and 2023-24 – but this includes growth in some of the universities and Arms Length Bodies registered with the Commission. Of the organisations known to have received a grant in 2022-23 or 2023-24 included in UKGrantmaking, the growth in income recorded in annual returns was 2.3%. While we don’t have a precise figure for the income growth in the sector, indications are that it was at, or more likely below, the rate of inflation during a period of rising need and increasing costs.
The growth in grants appears to have been higher than the rate of growth of income overall, making grants even more important to the sector in uncertain times.
Reflections
Despite making up less than a quarter of the sector income overall, grantmaking is critical, representing the majority of income for some organisations. Grantmaking also funds some activities that wouldn’t happen without the contribution of grants, including activities supporting individuals and communities unable to pay for services, and causes or organisations that are less suitable for public fundraising or where fundraising or fees cannot cover the full costs.
Grantmaking has continued to grow during this period, as has our understanding of the grantmaking picture. It is positive to see that regranting and collaborations continue – with even more that might not be visible in the available data.
A note on data quality
We have seen improvements to the quality of data available which has supported an improved understanding of the ecosystem and the overall picture. However, the lack of data from local authorities and devolved governments is a barrier to understanding, especially the local grantmaking picture. In both these cases, the detail of the specific grants is not available in a comprehensive way using the 360Giving Data Standard, and we were unable to source totals for these figures from each organisation.
This lack of data impacts decision-making within these organisations, as well as impacting understanding of the overall picture.
We will explore other types of grantmakers and their grantmaking in subsequent sections of our analysis. We hope in future years to be able to work with local authorities and devolved governments to improve the data available.