Where does the money really go? The challenge of understanding the geographical distribution of grants

A map showing where grant money goes sounds like the ultimate transparency tool. At 360Giving, we love data that paints a clear picture. But when it comes to visualising the geography of grantmaking, maps can easily tell a misleading story, which is why there are no maps in this edition of UKGrantmaking.

This is because mapping grants data comes with unique health warnings, and misinterpreting it risks creating a false narrative about the geographic distribution of funding, obscuring, rather than promoting, a better understanding of the grantmaking and charity picture.

We built UKGrantmaking precisely because we believe good decisions depend on good data. That means being honest about what geographical data can and cannot tell us.

In this blog, we outline the key challenges and traps to watch out for in the geographical analysis of grantmaking.

What to look out for

Charity location versus the impact

The biggest trap in geographic grants data analysis is confusing ‘where a charity is registered’ with ‘where its work actually happens’.

Our 2026 UKGrantmaking analysis illustrates this perfectly. Looking closely at grant recipients with a registered address in London, we found that 51% of these grants go to local organisations operating within the capital. However, those grants to organisations operating exclusively in London represent just 18% of the total funding amount received by organisations in London.

The remaining 82% (worth £1.2 billion) is awarded to national or international charities headquartered in London. Many of the UK’s largest and most prominent charities — those working nationally and internationally on issues from poverty to medical research to international development — have a registered address in London because that is where their head offices happen to be. A grant to a major homelessness charity based in a London postcode could be spent on frontline services in Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff, or Nairobi. This ‘head office effect’ is most evident in London, but you can see this pattern playing out around all of the UK’s largest cities.

At first glance, when you see grantmaking analysis that points to a London concentration in grant funding and presents this as evidence of geographic inequality, the numbers seem to support the story: a significant share of grant money flows to organisations with London registered addresses. But registered address is not the same as place of impact – and as more organisations become remote with a registered address at the office of their auditor or company secretary, this address becomes even less meaningful. 

The headline figure of London dominance collapses almost entirely once you look past the postcode.

Distribution of grants versus availability of data

While we can track total grantmaking figures using a foundation’s published accounts, those accounts rarely show us exactly where the money goes. One of the few ways to map that geographic distribution is through data publishing using the 360Giving Data Standard.

Because publishing grants data to the 360Giving Data Standard is voluntary, the picture we get is distorted. The funders who choose to share this data are not spread evenly across the country, meaning the locations we can see reflect data availability rather than the true scope of funding.

For example, while central government departments in Whitehall publish comprehensive grants data for this period, devolved governments, such as the Scottish Government, do not. Similarly, not all community foundations publish data, and only a very small number of local authorities share their grants. This means Scotland and various regions appear under-represented on paper, even though in reality, funding is actively flowing there.

The volume of grants and grantmakers also makes a big difference. When we look at grants to individuals and families, we don’t face the same issues with the ‘head office effect’ because the recipient’s location is where the impact occurs. However, as it’s only been possible to publish anonymised grants to individuals using the 360Giving Data Standard for a few years, only a small fraction of these funders are sharing data. For example, the area with the highest number of grants to individuals and families in the dataset is Birmingham. This is a direct consequence of the inclusion of a local funder and a funder testing a specific programme there. A small number of funders can profoundly skew the picture when the data is not comprehensive.

When you see a lack of grants to charities in a particular area, it is important to recognise that it is often a reflection of the availability of the data in those areas, rather than a real insight into the distribution of grants. For this reason, we don’t compare the geographical spread of grantmaking between different areas unless only national funders are being analysed, to avoid drawing inaccurate conclusions. 

We’re working hard to support more funders, especially place-based grantmakers, to publish their data to help fill these gaps in the availability of data. In the meantime, the analysis in the Focus: Geography section of UKGrantmaking uses information on the scope of foundations’ grantmaking from their statutory accounts and charity registrations to better understand the position.

Data versus context

Another issue is comparing data and figures between areas without the relevant context. Population and community needs, including deprivation levels, matter enormously too.

When you see a direct comparison of grant funding across regions that ignores population size, the picture will be incomplete. London is home to roughly 15% of the UK’s population, including significant concentrations of poverty, deprivation and unmet need. Funding levels in the capital, as elsewhere, need to be understood in the context of both the scale of the population and the challenges many communities face. 

The other context to consider when comparing areas is the overall ecosystem. For example, comparing grants to youth clubs between different areas may be misleading if it does not take into account areas where the Local Authority still runs the youth provision, which will be reflected in expenditure rather than grantmaking. So keep in mind that less money in grants doesn’t necessarily represent an injustice or an unmet need.

Dimensions in the data

There is no dataset that allows accurate analysis and mapping of the distribution of grants in the UK, so treat claims to have done so with a healthy level of scepticism and check the methodology for common traps. And no. AI can’t get the data for you. AI can create structured data from unstructured sources, but it can’t create it. It is not a question of collating data from different sources – the data does not exist for AI to do that, as charities are not required to report on the geographical spend of their activities.

There are many different dimensions in the grants data. Data available includes:

• The registered address of the funder
• The registered geographical scope of the funder (including any geographical restrictions in their charitable objects)
• Their intended area of operation or stated priorities
• The registered address of the grant recipient charity
• The area of operation/delivery area of the recipient
• The area where the project funded by the grant will take place

Each of these can tell a different story, and none of them alone is sufficient or complete. In particular, the areas where funded activities take place, or the locations of the service users, are available for only a small proportion of the grants published using the 360Giving Data Standard.

This complexity is not a flaw in the data in UKGrantmaking — it reflects the genuine complexity of how philanthropy works. A family foundation based in Yorkshire and a national disability charity based in Bloomsbury both appear in the same dataset, but their geographical footprints are entirely different. 

It is not currently possible, using any of the available datasets, to accurately record where the money granted is spent across all funders. While this is possible for the funders with narrow geographic restrictions on their funding, it is not possible for the majority of funders. Even for those who have published data using the 360Giving Data Standard where we have the details of all their grants, we are unable to allocate the funding to specific areas. This is because a grant which isn’t to a local charity or for a specific project doesn’t include the geographical allocation of the spend to different geographical areas, and this is especially the case as more funding is unrestricted so the location is less likely to be specified.

What good analysis looks like

In the geographical section added to the 2026 edition of UKGrantmaking, we have highlighted some of the challenges and illustrated approaches that avoid the traps when exploring the geographical distribution of grantmaking. We see this analysis as part of an ongoing process of learning and reflection, and hope it helps stimulate further discussion across the sector. 

Data is a powerful tool for visualising funding patterns, but a postcode is just a starting point,. As we interrogate the numbers on UKGrantmaking, we must look beyond the surface charts. Only by understanding ‘how’ charities operate can we avoid making hasty conclusions and truly understand where grantmaking is making an impact. It is essential to have this nuanced picture and much more detailed data (which is currently unavailable from any source) before looking at representation in a map.

UKGrantmaking is designed to support the kind of careful, multi-layered analysis that responsible reporting requires. We publish our methodology openly, flag the limitations of the data, and urge all users — researchers, journalists, policymakers, and funders — to read the context alongside the numbers. Where the money goes matters enormously but showing this is harder than it looks. We would urge anyone approaching geographical analysis of grantmaking to go beyond the postcode, don’t think AI can do it for you, and to avoid misleading maps!