Grantmakers
In this section, we explore the comparative size of organisations making grants in the UK, continuing to use the following five 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.
- Charities – grantmaking alongside other charitable activities or in the support of a single cause or institution.
- Government – grantmaking by central, local, devolved government and Arms Length Bodies to charitable causes. Comprehensive data for local and devolved governments could not be sourced.
- National Lottery – grants made by the National Lottery distributors.
- Other – Donor-Advised Funds, companies and international grantmakers.
Trusts and foundations are the largest category, with over 90% of the organisations covered falling into this category, and their total grantmaking accounts for around one third of the total. We explore each segment in detail in the following sections.
Size of grantmakers
The majority of grantmakers are relatively small, distributing under £1 million a year.
However, looking at the proportion of grantmakers by band masks the difference in the number of organisations across categories.
Number of grantmakers by spending
360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators, accounts and data published using the 360Giving
The high proportion in the grantmaker categories with zero/unknown grantmaking spend reflects a high number of charitable trusts that are recorded on regulator registers as grantmakers, but are under the threshold for recording returns. Some of these are very small with expenditure of under £10,000 in the year, including investment fees and administration costs.
We explore this in more detail in the Trusts and Foundations section.
Central government departments
Central government departments have significant grant programmes and distribution of spending through grants; however, only a small proportion of this is directed to the voluntary and community sector. Total grantmaking published by the government for the year was £26.8bn (2023-24: £29.2bn -8%). However, for the purpose of this analysis, the figures below exclude programmes not relevant to the sector, such as formula grants to local authorities, funding for statutory bodies like the Nuclear Liabilities Fund and Homes England, and other business-related grants, which would greatly skew the overall grantmaking picture due to their scale and nature.
Excluding these, grantmaking spend increased by 15% compared to the previous year. Because central government departments include a small number of higher-value grant programmes compared to other funders, it is common to see fluctuations in spending from year to year.
Central government departments: Grantmaking spend
360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators, accounts and data published using the 360Giving Data Standard.
Arms Length Bodies
Arms Length Bodies (ALBs) are organisations that operate independently from government but is still accountable to it. They are funded by public money and are a crucial part of the UK’s public sector landscape, responsible for delivering a wide range of public services. Some of these are delivered by charitable organisations receiving grants from ALBs.
ALBs have a degree of operational independence from direct ministerial control. This allows them to carry out their functions with a level of impartiality. Despite their independence, ALBs are accountable to government ministers, who in turn are accountable to Parliament for their activities. This is often managed through a sponsoring government department.
ALBs perform diverse roles, including:
- Delivering public services (eg, issuing driving licenses, managing prisons).
- Providing expert advice to the government.
- Regulating specific industries or activities.
- Making legal judgments (in the case of tribunals).
- Promoting culture or other national interests.
Overall, grantmaking spending decreased by 3% compared to the previous year – but, as with central government departments, some include a small number of very large grant programmes, so fluctuations in total grantmaking value from year to year are not uncommon.
Arms Length Bodies: Grantmaking spend
360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators, accounts and data published using the 360Giving Data Standard.
Donor-Advised Funds
DAFs are a growing but less visible part of philanthropy in the UK.
We identified over 30 DAFs whose overall distributions continued to grow above inflation and the overall grantmaking trends. For 2024-25, distributions increased by 8% year-on-year. Following a large increase in the prior year, this was 30% more distributed over the two years since 2022-23.
A Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) is a giving account established as a registered charity. The umbrella charity serves as a “sponsoring organisation”, which manages and administers individual DAF accounts.
DAF accounts allow donors to make a charitable contribution, receive an immediate tax deduction, and then recommend grants from the fund over time. Donors can contribute to the fund as frequently as they like, and then recommend grants to their preferred charitable organisations whenever it makes sense for them.
Some foundations are run through a DAF and do not produce separate accounts. Some DAFs specialise in small donations, including donation platforms, rather than grants. It is not possible to separate these out in the data so we have included all the grants/donations recorded from these “sponsoring organisations” in UKGrantmaking. We were also unable to separate out grants made through direct grant programmes of these organisations from their DAF functions. We are working with several DAF providers to improve the availability of data in future.
Largest 25 Donor-Advised Funds summary
360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators and charity accounts. Percentage change calculated only for organisations with data in both years.
For the largest 25 Donor Advised Funds, the distributions (grantmaking) total grew by 9% compared to 2023-24 and by 31% vs 2022-23. Income also increased by 12% between 2023-24 and 2024-25.
Charities Aid Foundation’s scale means its distributions represent nearly half of the DAF’s segment total and has seen continued growth over recent years. Alongside this, over 60% of the 25 largest DAFs also increased their distributions year-on-year; however, overall the growth in value of distributions was predominantly driven by a small number of the largest organisations.
Largest 25 Donor-Advised Funds by grantmaking spend
360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators and charity accounts.
*Charities Aid Foundation has published 360Giving data about selected grantmaking programmes, but does not publish grants data in its capacity as a Donor Advised Fund. Grantmaking spending figure includes direct grants distributed, as well as Donor Advised Funds.
Charities
The Charities segment of the grantmaking picture includes organisations that provide grants alongside other charitable activities, so they are not primarily funders, or they make grants to their members or in support of a single cause or institution.
Over 500 organisations were identified, and the largest 25 accounted for 65% of the segment total, awarding grants totalling £2.4bn in 2024-25, a 6% increase from the previous year and ahead of inflation. This was despite an overall 6% decrease in the group’s income. This partially reflects grants being received in one year but spent in a subsequent year.
Largest 25 charities summary
360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators, accounts and data published using the 360Giving Data Standard.
Looking at the trends of the largest organisations over a five-year period, on average, grantmaking has remained relatively flat in the past three years but this varies between organisations.
There was much fluctuation between organisations, 8 increased grantmaking year-on-year by 5% or more, whilst 10 decreased by 5% or more.
Largest 25 Charities by grantmaking spend
360Giving analysis of data from charity regulators, accounts and data published using the 360Giving Data Standard