Who our funding is reaching 2024

Restoke © Jenny Harper

21 February 2025

To help us understand who our funding is reaching, we ask all applicants and organisations we fund to complete a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) monitoring form. This page shares analysis from data collected from applicants in 2024.

Using the categories identified in the DEI Data Standard, we ask organisations about the communities the work supports, their leadership, and their mission. This report focuses on communities the work supports and the organisation's leadership. We have also focused on our grant funding rather than social investment. In addition to DEI data, we've also used information collected about the geographic areas our funding serves and the governance structure of organisations we've funded.

Unless stated otherwise, the information reflects DEI data submitted from:

  • 206 grants, totalling £38.4m (87% of the grants awarded in 2024)
  • 1,502 applications (94% of 1,594 applications given a decision in 2024).

This isn't a complete picture. We don't yet have DEI data for all our funding and there may be some over- or under-reporting of organisations who have identified as being led by a specific group (throughout the report we use 'led by' to describe these organisations).

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Grants awarded in 2024

Chart 1 looks at grants awarded in terms of leadership across our strategic aims: A Fairer Future; Creative, Confident Communities; and Our Natural World. It also shows grants we made to support infrastructure organisations working across all our aims, which are shown as 'A Sector Fit for the Future'.

  • A Fairer Future: 81% of grants made in this aim were awarded to led by organisations (77 of 95 grants). As with our report in 2023, most of the grants awarded to led by organisations were in A Fairer Future, reflecting this area's focus on the intersections of inequity and our racial, gender and migrant justice priorities.
  • Creative, Confident Communities: 42% of grants made in this aim were awarded to led by organisations (20 of 48 grants). Women made up the biggest proportion of led by organisations in Creative, Confident Communities. In November 2024, we updated our guidance for our funding priorities in Creative, Confident Communities to reflect the importance of equity being embedded in the organisation's approach and for the work to engage and represent the diverse communities in a place.
  • Our Natural World: 27% of grants made in this aim were awarded to led by organisations (15 of 56 grants). Over the last few years, we have been more proactive in tackling the lack of diversity in the environment sector, and supporting more environment organisations led by economically and culturally minoritised communities. For example, we funded All the Elements, an organisation led by communities experiencing racial inequity, for the first time with a small grant in 2023; and awarded a longer, larger grant to them in 2024.
  • A Sector Fit for the Future: 29% of grants made towards this area of our work were to 'led by' organisations (2 of 7 grants). Our funding in this area is by invitation only and focuses on work that enables a stronger, more inclusive and innovative sector.

Chart 2 looks at grants awarded in terms of the organisation's leadership and the communities they support. The data is broken down into the following categories, which may intersect: communities experiencing racial inequity, disabled people, educational or economic disadvantage, LGBT+ people, migrants, older/younger people, women and girls, and no specific group.

  • Leadership: Over half (55.1%) of grants with DEI data were awarded to organisations that said they were led by a specific group. This is a small increase compared to our 2023 data where it was 48.5%. This is largely reflected in the data for each category where there was an increase in the proportion of grants to led by organisations compared to 2023. The categories with the highest number of led by organisations are: communities experiencing racial inequity (25.2%), women and girls (22.3%), and migrants (17.1%).
  • Communities supported: Overall, 56.6% of grants awarded was for work supporting communities identifying as a specific group. The categories with a higher number of grants include: communities experiencing racial inequity (33%), those identifying as educationally and economically disadvantaged (19.0%), older or younger people (19.0%), and migrants (18.0%).
  • More grants went to organisations supporting specific communities than to organisations who are led by those communities: Other than for the women and girls category, this is the general trend. The most notable differences are for the following categories: older or younger people, educationally and economically disadvantaged people, and communities experiencing racial inequity.
  • Women and Girls: Similar to our 2023 data, a higher proportion of organisations are led by women and girls (22.3%) than specifically support women and girls (12.1%). This shows that a number of organisations are incidentally led by women, rather than ‘led by and for’ women and girls.
  • Funding amount awarded: £19m (49.5% of the total funding represented by the data) was awarded to led by organisations. In 2024, our average grant size for all our funding was less than in 2023 (£187,030 compared to £212,632 in the previous year). This is broadly mirrored in each of the categories.
  • Communities experiencing racial inequity: Looking specifically at this category, 20.3% of the total funding by amount went to organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity. Compared with data from 2023, this is a small decrease where 23.1% of the total funding by amount went to organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity. This is partly due to two £1.5m grants made in 2023 and 11 New Connections grants made in 2024. New Connections is an initiative to find and fund organisations who do not meet our usual governance criteria, and which prioritised organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity. Organisations received a total grant of £70,000 to support their core costs as well as their participation in a two year Peer Learning Network.

Applications decided in 2024

Chart 3 looks at applications decided focusing on the organisation's leadership and the communities supported. The data is broken down by the same categories as those in chart 2.

  • Leadership compared to communities supported: Similar to 2023, trends in applications decided are similar to grants awarded. Women and girls is the only specific group where there are more 'led by' organisations than 'led by and for'. The biggest difference in leadership compared to communities supported is for educationally and economically disadvantaged; and for the older/younger people category.
  • Applications compared to grants awarded: Over half of the applications we receive (52.7%) are from led by organisations, which is similar to the proportion of grants we awarded to led by organisations (55.1%)

Grants awarded to 'led by' organisations by size of grant

Chart 4 looks at the size of grants awarded to led by organisations, which are shown as the pink dots. Grants awarded to organisations who aren't led by a specific group are shown as grey dots for comparison.

  • In general, the spread of grants to led by organisations by size is similar to grants to organisations who are not led by a specific group.
  • Most of the grants awarded to led by organisations (67 of 117 grants) were between £90,001 and £250,000.
  • We made 30 grants that were £90,000 or less to led by organisations. This is higher than in 2023, mainly due to grants made through our New Connections programme, an initiative to test an approach to finding and funding organisations who do not meet our usual governance criteria.

Grants awarded to 'led by' organisations by application route

We receive the majority of applications through our open application process where organisations submit an expression of interest through our website. We also work proactively to invite applications from organisations who we think are a strong fit for our strategy. They may be organisations we learn about through our work, or organisations we have funded seeking a follow-on grant.

Chart 5 looks at the number of grants awarded to led by organisations, focusing on the application route taken: open application process vs invited or follow-on grant. You can also see the number of grants awarded to organisations not led by a specific group for comparison.

  • Overall, the data shows that grants awarded to 'led by' organisations are spread across both application routes.
  • Open application process: 62.7% of grants we awarded through this route were to led by organisations (47 grants compared to 28 grants to organisations not led by a specific group). This is a higher proportion than in 2023 where it was 57.6%.
  • Invited or follow-on grant: 51.1% of grants awarded through this route were to 'led by' organisations (67 grants compared to 64 grants to organisations not led by a specific group). This was also higher when compared to 2023, where it was 44.8%.

Grants awarded by region and UK country

Chart 6 shows the spread of grants awarded by region and country in the UK. This is data based on 211 grants awarded in 2024.

  • As with 2023, most of our grants support work spanning multiple regions or countries: 42.6% support UK-wide work and 3.4% support work in more than one UK country
  • England: 13.7% supports work across England, totalling £3m
  • Scotland: 10.4% support work in Scotland, totalling £4.9m.
  • Wales: 6.2% support work in Wales, totalling £2.6m.
  • Northern Ireland: 2.4% support work in Northern Ireland, totalling £650k.

Grants awarded by governance structure and organisational leadership

Chart 7 shows the number of grants awarded in terms of the organisation's legal structure. They have been split by registered charities and non-registered charities.

  • 70.9% of grants went to registered charities, with the majority going to organisations registered as a Company Limited by Guarantee or Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)
  • 29.1% of grants went to non-registered charities, with the majority of these going to organisations registered as a Community Interest Company (CIC) or Company Limited by Guarantee

Charts 8 and 9 show the proportion of grants that went to led by organisations in terms of charity status.

  • A higher proportion of non-registered charities (65.6%) said they were led by a specific group compared to registered charities (49.7%)

Our active grants at a glance

Charts 10 and 11 reflect data from 701 active grants with DEI data, which is 84.1% of our current portfolio (834 grants at the time of writing). They show the number of grants to organisations led by a specific group and the number of grants that went to organisations that support a specific community.

  • Leadership of the organisations we fund: 49.4% said they were led by a specific group.
  • Communities the work supports: 49.5% said they supported a specific community.

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