Focus: Geography
The data on funders covers funders registered in all four UK nations: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. For each funder, there are four aspects to the geographical coverage:
- The place where their registered address is (usually based on a postcode provided to a regulator like the Charity Commission).
- The “scope” of their location – do they operate at a local level, across a region, nation or country, or outside of the UK.
- Their area of operation – areas where they are registered to operate in their charitable objects.
- Where the recipients of their grants are located and where they operate.
This information is not always available or clear for every funder, and does change over time as funders’ priorities and focus change. The analysis presented here only includes trusts and foundations, so does not include government grantmakers or national lottery distributors. The 20 Postcode Lottery Trusts, which are based in Scotland but operate across the UK, are also excluded from the analysis.
Our analysis is based on 14,100 trusts and foundations for which data is available on the registered location and location scope. As might be expected, funders with larger grantmaking spend tend to operate over a wider area.
It is important to remember that the figures below only relate to the grantmaking spend of the trusts and foundations with a registered address in each UK nation. This means that the grantmaking spend shown for a nation does not include the (sometimes significant) spending of trusts and foundations that are not based there but operate across the UK.
Grantmakers registered in England
Of the 14,400 trusts and foundations with data available, 12,400 (86%) have a registered address in England. Of these 42% are registered to operate at a local or regional level, a further 6% operate across the whole of England, 33% operate across all of the UK, and 14% operate both in the UK and overseas.
Grantmaking spend is concentrated in trusts and foundations that are registered to operate over a wider area – 89% of grantmaking by trusts and foundations registered in England is by funders that operate across England or the whole of the UK.
Looking at grants to charities in England from grantmakers who publish their data using the 360Giving Data Standard, the majority of grants (69%) go to charities that work at a local or regional level, with the remaining 31% going to charities based in England that work at a national level (including other UK nations) or overseas. However, nearly half (48%) of grants by amount go to charities that work nationally, 38% goes to charities working at a local level within England and 14% goes to charities that work both nationally and overseas.
This analysis shows that although a disproportionate number of foundations are registered in England, a high number are registered to operate UK-wide and internationally, and in practice, both England registered funders are supporting work across the UK, and the charities registered in England are also supporting work across the UK. Looking at where funders are registered or where charities receiving grants are registered does not provide an accurate picture of the geographical impact of the funds and which communities might be benefiting. We have not included a map of grants for this very reason as it would be misleading.
Grantmakers registered in Scotland
Grantmakers in Scotland are identified based on the office address from the Scottish Charity Regulator’s register of charities. The 20 Postcode Lottery Trusts, which are all registered as Scottish charities but operate across the UK and have total grantmaking of over £200m, have not been included in the data for Scotland as they skew the overall picture. There are some grantmakers registered in England and Wales with a registered address in Scotland, and some registered with OSCR that have an English registered address. In these cases the organisations are allocated to a country based on their postcode.
Of the 1,600 trusts and foundations with a registered address in Scotland, over half (59%) are registered to only operate within Scotland, with the remaining 42% also registered to operate across the UK and overseas. This pattern is also reflected in total grantmaking spend – of the total spend of £322 million, two-thirds (66%) is spent by trusts and foundations that work only in Scotland (either locally or across the whole nation). The chart also shows how including the UK-wide spending of the Postcode Lottery Trusts changes this picture.
The three largest trusts and foundations with a registered address in Scotland account for nearly one-third of all grantmaking spend – and all three are registered to fund only within Scotland.
Largest 25 trusts and foundations with registered address in Scotland
360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators, accounts and data published using the 360Giving Data Standard. Excludes the 20 Postcode Trusts.
Looking at grants to charities in Scotland from grantmakers who publish 360Giving data, the majority of grants (79%) go to charities that work at a local or regional level within Scotland, with the remaining 21% going to charities based in Scotland that work at a national level (including other UK nations) or overseas. The same pattern is also broadly true for grants by amount, with a majority (56%) of the grant amount received by charities in Scotland going to those that work locally or regionally within Scotland.
Grantmakers registered in Wales
264 trusts and foundations in the UK Grantmaking dataset have a registered office in Wales. Over half of trusts and foundations with registered addresses in Wales operate either locally or regionally (112 trusts and foundations – 42%) or across all of Wales (51 trusts and foundations – 19%). There are also a number of trusts and foundations based in Wales that also operate in other parts of the UK – 101 trusts and foundations.
Funding is dominated by these trusts and foundations that operate across the UK and overseas, although some larger trusts and foundations do explain that while they can fund across the UK they do prioritise funding in Wales. 63% of the total grantmaking spend of £70 million by trusts and foundations with registered addresses in Wales is spent by those organisations that work across the UK or wider.
Over half of this grantmaking spend reported is from two family foundations – the Moondance Foundation and Waterloo Foundation. The Moondance Foundation reports that its funding has a preference towards activities in Wales, but it can also fund outside Wales.
Largest 25 trusts and foundations with registered address in Wales
360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators, accounts and data published using the 360Giving Data Standard.
Grantmakers registered in Northern Ireland
Grantmakers in Northern Ireland are identified based on the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland’s register of charities. In total 101 trusts and foundations were identified, the majority of which (85 out of 101) operate only with Northern Ireland, either locally or across the whole of Northern Ireland. Where a trust and foundation operates across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland this has been recorded as Within Northern Ireland in the chart and table below.
Grantmaking spend by these trusts and foundations is also concentrated in Northern Ireland, with 87% of total grantmaking spend of £36 million spent by trusts and foundations who work only in Northern Ireland.
Largest 25 trusts and foundations with registered address in Northern Ireland
360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators, accounts and data published using the 360Giving Data Standard.
Grant recipients by country
For charity recipients, the majority of grants (82%) had a registered address in England, with 11% registered in Scotland.
This data is skewed by which funders publish their data, and the quality of the data published, and should not be read as an absolute indication of where funds are distributed. For example, not all community foundations publish their data, so there are geographical disparities in data available that might not reflect disparities in funds distributed. Scotland is under-represented because the Scottish Government has not published its grants data, but all central government departments in Whitehall have.
The profile of the number of grants broadly reflects the number of charities registered, but as seen above, the high proportions of grant amounts to organisations registered in England reflects a greater proportion of UK-wide and international charities registered there receiving larger grants.
Grantmaking in London
As explored in UK Grantmaking 2025, a large number of trusts and foundations are based in London but operate around the UK and overseas. We have found 3,900 trusts and foundations with a registered office in London, with total spending of £5.6 billion. This represents around 27% of trusts and foundations in the UK, but 68% of grantmaking spending by trusts and foundations.
Of these 3,900 trusts and foundations, 770 (20%) operate only within London, with the remainder also operating across the rest of the UK and internationally. These London-only funders have total grantmaking spend of £350 million. This is only 6% of the grantmaking spend of trusts and foundations registered in London, but still represents significant grantmaking spending.
Looking at grant recipients whose registered address is in London, we find that while 51% of grants to London-based recipients only operate in London, these grants represent just 18% of the total amount of grants to London-based recipients. The large majority (82% of the grant amount, around £1.1 billion) of grants received by London-based organisations are received by organisations that work across the country or internationally. Some of those grants will also be spent within London as well as across the country.