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 2025.
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. 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:
- 224 grants, totalling £47.8m (93% of the grants awarded in 2025)
- 1,435 applications
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).
- Definitions
- Led by: describes an organisation that is led by people with a shared characteristic
- Led by and for: describes an organisation that is led by people from the community it serves
- Intersectionality
Organisations may be led by groups which share more than one characteristic. Those that do will be reflected in the data for the relevant characteristics. For example, an organisation led by Latin American migrant women will appear in three categories: ‘communities experiencing racial inequity’, ‘migrants’, and ‘women and girls’.
- More information
- See an overview of our grant funding in 2025, broken down by type of support, amount awarded, and by aim and funding priority. It also shares application success rates
- Learn more about our funding data including how to search our grants and social investments
On this page
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Grants awarded in 2025
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: 79% of grants made in this aim were awarded to led by organisations (69 out of 87 grants). As with previous years, 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: 45% of grants made in this aim were awarded to led by organisations (26 of 58 grants).
- Our Natural World: 21% of grants made in this aim were awarded to led by organisations (16 of 59 grants).
- A Sector Fit for the Future: 50% of grants made towards this area of our work were to led by organisations (2 of 4 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, younger people, women and girls, and no specific group.
- Leadership: Half (50.4%) of grants with DEI data were awarded to organisations that said they were led by a specific group. This is a small decrease compared to our 2024 data where it was 55.1%. The categories with the highest number of led by organisations are: communities experiencing racial inequity (25.4%), and women and girls (23.2%). This is reflected across our strategic aims.
- Communities supported: Overall, 52.7% of grants awarded was for work supporting communities identifying as a specific group, which is a small decrease compared to last year's data. Communities experiencing racial inequity was the category with the highest number of grants (25.9%).
- Organisations 'led by and for' a specific community: For categories including communities experiencing racial inequity, disabled people, LGBT+people, and migrants, the number of organisations led by a specific group was broadly similar to the number organisations supporting that same community.
- Educationally and economically disadvantaged people: Organisations supporting this group made up more the double the number of organisations led by this group. This is similar for the category 'younger people', which is expected as that includes children.
- Women and Girls: Similar to previous years, a higher proportion of organisations are led by women and girls (23.2%) than specifically support women and girls (12.9%). This shows that a number of organisations are incidentally led by women, rather than ‘led by and for’ women and girls.
- Funding amount awarded: £32.5m (68% of the total funding represented by the data) was awarded to led by organisations, which is a higher share than last year. 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, 24.1% of the total funding by amount went to organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity. The total awarded in 2025 was £11.5m, which is higher than last year's where it was £7.8m.
Applications decided in 2025
Chart 3 looks at applications decided, focusing on the organisation's leadership and the communities supported.
- Leadership compared to communities supported: Similar to previous years, 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 younger people category.
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 (62 of 113 grants) were between £90,001 and £250,000.
- We made 30 grants that were £90,000 or less to led by organisations. This is the same as 2024. And as with that year, this is mainly due to grants made through our New Connections programme, which we extended by a year.
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 represented in both routes, with the most (73 of 113 grants to led by organisations) awarded after being invited to apply..
- Open application process: 54.8% of grants we awarded through this route were to led by organisations.
- Invited or follow-on grant: 48.3% of grants awarded through this route were to 'led by' organisations.
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 229 grants, totalling £48.9m, awarded in 2025.
- As with previous, most of our grants support work spanning multiple regions or countries: 48.0% support UK-wide work and 2.6% support work in more than one UK country
- England: 8.7% supports work across England or in multiple England regions, totalling £3.2m. 24.4% supports work in a specific England region, totalling £10.5m.
- Scotland: 8.7% support work in Scotland, totalling £3.8m.
- Wales: 4.8% support work in Wales, totalling £2.0m.
- Northern Ireland: 2.6% support work in Northern Ireland, totalling £1.1m.
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.
- 66.7% of grants went to registered charities, which is a slightly smaller share that last year. The majority were organisations registered as a Company Limited by Guarantee or Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO or SCIO)
- 33.1% of grants went to non-registered charities, a slightly higher share than last year. The majority of these were organisations registered as a Community Interest Company (CIC).
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 (63.9%) said they were led by a specific group compared to registered charities (49.7%). This is similar to 2024's data.
Our active grants at a glance
Charts 10 and 11 reflect data from 669 active grants with DEI data, which is 84.4% of our current portfolio (789 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: 50.2% said they were led by a specific group.
- Communities the work supports: 47.8% said they supported a specific community.
