This page has questions about our strategy and support.
2.1 What do you fund?
Our grants support organisations’ core or project costs, including staff salaries and overheads. We also provide unrestricted funding for charities. We do not give grants for building or equipment costs, or individuals. See other exclusions from our funding.
We do not have minimum or maximum terms for grants – however the majority of our grants are for 3-5 years.
Our social investments start with the social need and tailor the investment to it: adapting and selecting financial instruments that are most appropriate. We invest directly into organisations and indirectly, through funds. Our social investments can support a broad range of capital costs as long as there are plans in place to generate income and support the capital investment.
We encourage organisations to apply as part of a partnership or collaboration, and welcome work which fits more than one of our impact goals or funding priorities.
You can search all our grants and social investment data on GrantNav to understand the type of work we support. Read more about our strategy and aims.
We only fund work that takes place in the UK (or where there is a clear primary benefit in the UK). We do not fund work in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man.
2.2 What kinds of organisations do you support?
Most organisations we give grants to are charities, but we do fund other types of organisations (including Community Interest Companies, and companies limited by guarantee) as long as the work they are doing with our grant funding is legally charitable. The Charities Act 2006 defines this as work that falls within one of 13 descriptions of purposes and is for the public benefit.
For organisations that are not registered charities, we need to see a copy of their constitution - a document that outlines the rules that will govern the organisation - to check that: there is sufficient public benefit; there is good governance; and there is protection against private gain.
For good governance, we want to see
- A minimum of three trustees or directors, the majority of whom should not be paid employees.
- The salaries and benefits of employees are approved by a majority of non-executive Directors.
- In the case of organisations that are not registered charities – an asset lock clause or other general mechanism used to cover all the provisions designed to ensure that the assets of an organisation, including profits or surpluses generated, are used for the benefit of its community or to further its activities and mission.
You may find the Charity Commission useful for information and advice on Governance and Internal Financial Controls.
By exception, when we proactively seek out a new idea to support ourselves, we might make grants to organisations which don’t meet all these governance standards provided that we are satisfied that the work is charitable, and has adequate safeguards in place. This might be through a conduit organisation, by providing a restricted grant, or by using a contractual arrangement.
For social investments, we only invest in organisations that have charitable aims and mission, but we can support more commercially based activities where it is clear that the organisation's primary purpose is social impact.
2.3 What do you mean by 'asset lock' or 'other general mechanism'
This may also be called a 'mission lock'. It can take various forms and have other names. It’s typically added to a company’s articles of association and often consists of:
- A Social or Environmental Purpose or Mission Statement
- An Operational Commitment - for example a rule that the board can’t make decisions that conflict with the Purpose/Mission, or rules around the use of assets, or around reinvestment of surpluses vs using them to pay dividends
- (Sometimes/ideally) a method of entrenching/reinforcing the above so that it’s harder to remove or water down in the future.
As a charity, our funds may only be used for charitable purposes. Asset locks and mission locks help us assess and mitigate the risk of funds being used for private benefit when funding non-charities.
2.4 How do you make decisions?
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation is a registered charity. Our board of Trustees meet regularly and set the overall strategic direction of the Foundation. We currently have 12 Trustees, a number of which are members of the founder's family. Read more about our governance.
Trustees approve a budget each year, which is linked to the long-term performance of our investments. Currently our spend budget is approximately £45 to £50 million. We also have a £60 million allocation to social investments.
The Trustees work with an executive team to make decisions on how to use our resources and make funding decisions.
Decisions are made depending on the size of the funding request:
- Grants up to £90k - Executive Team, which meets every two weeks
- Grants up to £250k & social investment up to £500k - Executive/Trustee committee, which meets every 6 weeks
- Grants over £250k and Social Investment over £500k - Trustee Board, which meets 5 times a year
Learn about the main reasons we turn applications down and what we consider when making decisions.
2.5 Why don't you support organisations with a turnover of less than £100,000 in your open application process?
The vast majority of organisations we support have a turnover of above £100,000. We appreciate how difficult and time-consuming fundraising can be, and that our funding in particular is not easy to get. We want to be realistic about who we're most likely to fund, and avoid many more organisations being disappointed when there is little prospect of success.
This does not mean we don't support early stage and smaller organisations with a turnover of less than £100,000 - we do and will continue to do so. However, in our experience, online applications are not the best mechanism for identifying them.
See the next question to learn more about our support for organisations who don't meet this criteria.
2.6 Do you support organisations with a turnover of less than £100,000, and how do I apply?
Yes. We have always and will continue to support early stage and smaller organisations who we believe may be a good partner for our strategy, but may not meet our eligibility criteria.
This is particularly the case where we want to pilot, test, disrupt, support new ideas or organisations that we think will be important in terms of meeting our strategic aims going forwards.
To do this, we are choosing to focus our resources on finding these organisations proactively – for instance: by strengthening our networks, targeted referrals and monitoring the sector to seek out organisations that are doing amazing work towards our goals.
2.7 What are you doing to support organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity or are disability-led who have a turnover of less than £100,000?
We want to find more ways to support smaller organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity or are disability-led who share our goals, but may not meet our eligibility criteria. As part of this, we are working on expanding and strengthening our networks as well as working proactively to seek out organisations doing amazing work towards our goals. Please note that applications are by invitation only.
We also fund in partnerships with organisations such as Imkaan, the Rosa Fund, Global Dialogue and Comic Relief who have the experience and reach to do this well and we are learning from them.
We continue to explore other ways we can improve our support for organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity or are disability-led and very much welcome feedback. If you'd like to share your thoughts or have any questions, do get in touch by contacting communications@esmeefairbairn.org.uk.
2.8 Why are your outcomes towards 'early years provision' and 'young people leaving care' by invitation only?
As we do not plan to make many grants towards these outcomes in our funding priority for Children and young people's rights, we want to avoid organisations investing time in applying to us when the chances of success are low.
- For work towards early years provision: we want to work more closely with our partners and the organisations we are currently supporting, as well as be more focused and strategic in our ambition. We may invite applications where we think we can best add value, but these will be small in number and by exception, and we will identify them by working with our existing partners.
- For work towards young people leaving care: we are currently supporting a fantastic group of organisations and are focusing on working more closely with them to achieve our desired outcomes. We may invite applications where we feel additional work is needed in one of our focus areas, and we will identify these by working with our partners in the sector. As we do not plan to make many new grants to organisations we’re not already supporting, this priority is closed to applications. See our Young People Leaving Care Learning programme to learn more about out work and support.
If you are interested in applying for funding towards our other outcomes, please see our guidance for support to learn more about the work we're looking to support under the relevant long-term outcome.
2.9 What if my work fits more than one priority, impact goal or aim?
We think it’s great if your work fits more than one so don’t worry too much if it does. Our application process will ask you to choose an aim and priority that is the best match for your work. You will also have the chance to select which other priorities are also a match for what you do.
We also don't have a preference in terms of projects focusing on one of our priorities and projects that work across more than one priority. We want applicants to tell us about their priorities and how they align with ours.
2.10 Do you fund work that takes place in schools?
We know that engagement with schools is a valuable way to reach children and young people. Whilst we will consider work that takes place in schools, we do not fund work that is exclusively in schools and part of the curriculum.
2.11 Do you fund cultural education?
We updated our strategy for A Fairer Future in 2022, focusing our support for organisations that are grappling with the complexity of systemic inequity. We wanted to build on what we do well, our expertise and relationships, and work at the intersections of inequity.
By narrowing our focus to fewer areas, we believe we can use our resources more effectively and play a more active role ourselves in working towards our impact goals. This change in our approach means we are not able to fund across all the areas we have previously worked in.
Considering our limited history of funding the delivery of cultural education, we decided to move away from this as a broader area of work. We still believe arts education to be hugely important and continue to fund cultural activity with children and young people in specific ways.
We support cultural activity with children and young people in the following priorities.
2.12 Does ‘using all your resources’ mean a plan to spend down the endowment?
It doesn’t, but Trustees regularly review how much to balance need now with likely need in future. For example, in 2020 we agreed to give an extra £16m from our endowment in response to COVID-19.
2.13 How will you use your voice and other tools such as convening to influence?
Any influencing we do will be with the intention of achieving our impact goals, but it will be in two main ways.
- Firstly, backing the work we fund. Building on the kinds of facilitative actions we have taken over the past few years, we will aim to give more proactive support to the work we fund, leveraging its impact further through our own actions (making links and connections, sharing and amplifying messages from those we fund).
- Secondly and more rarely, taking the lead. Where we’ve planned to, as part of our roadmap, we will use our voice to build the case for better support for an issue; support campaigns that are key to making progress towards our impact goals; build alliances to push for change; or join a push for better legislation, regulation or policy change.
2.14 For Funding Plus, do you have a selection of preferred consultants or does the charity find their own?
Feedback we’ve received shows organisations value being able to choose a provider that best understands their organisation’s needs. We therefore do not have a preferred supplier list, but may be able to pass on details for providers that have been recommended by organisations we fund.
2.15 Do you fund religious organisations who have the promotion of their faith as one of their charitable objectives?
We would not provide unrestricted costs funding to an organisation whose charitable mission is to promote religion, as the advancement of religion is one of our exclusions (work we do not fund). However, we recognise that many religious organisations play important roles in their communities, supporting people of all faiths and none. We would therefore consider applications for projects or restricted costs from these organisations, provided they were open to all and did not proselytise as part of the requested programme. We would explore accessibility, targeting and the role of the organisation within the community during the assessment.