We make unrestricted, core, project, and delegated grants for charitable work in the UK.
On this page, you'll find more about our approach to funding, and what to expect from us as a funder.
Open and trusting grant-making
We are part of a community of funders and charities committed to open and trusting grant-making, a campaign coordinated by the Institute for Voluntary Action (IVAR).
Our approach to funding
- Long-term, core funding
- Around two thirds of our active grants are for core costs, or are unrestricted.
- Most of our grants are for three years to five years.
- Backing the work we care about
- We use all our tools, including Funding Plus, communications, and convening and connecting, to enable the work we fund to have a greater impact.
- We are keen to connect the organisations we support – you can investigate our data in our portfolio.
- Flexible and open to learning
- Our approach to learning is based on setting mutually agreed outcomes for the work we fund. We expect these outcomes to change over time.
- We encourage organisations to tell us when things are not going well, and to change and adapt their work over the course of our grant.
- We will only ask for information we need and use, and commit to sharing what we learn.
- Our team and how we work
We have a mostly London-based funding team of 17 managing an active portfolio of 700 grants.
As an organisation, we developed a series of values that act as a guide for staff and Trustees about how we work at Esmée. You can learn more about how we work as part of our commitments to open and trusting grant-making.
