2023 round up
2023 has seen the voluntary sector under a lot of pressure as the cost-of-living crisis continues to pressurise the economic and societal bounce back from Covid. Many groups are feeling particularly pressurised, e.g. refugees and migrants, women and girls, LGBTQI communities; while philanthropists and grant makers are struggling to prioritise spending.
The Researchery has had another very busy year helping to underpin the sector’s activities with good data.
We started the year by publishing what turned out to be the last in the current series of Foundation Giving Trends (funded by Pears Foundation and published by the Association of Charitable Foundations). This time series tracks the unique and additive value of funding from private philanthropic sources via the largest independent foundations (by value of grants). Such philanthropic funding offers unique additionality to the sector, by being able to back causes that struggle to gain wider attention, offering long-term support, working independently of short-term political cycles, and responding creatively to immediate need. These independent foundations, often endowed by a family, individual or business, hold a unique and very special place in the overall funding landscape, and are a powerful icon - in the UK and many other countries – of private wealth given back for public benefit. In 2020-21 the largest 300 independent foundations in the UK granted £3.7 billion to charitable causes, an increase of 13% in real-terms from the previous year.
This year will end with the publication of NPT-UK’s annual DAF Report, a round up of the money dedicated to charity via the UK’s largest Donor Advised Fund providers, another vehicle for private donors to support charitable endeavours. The Researchery was delighted to take up the reins of this excellent product this year with its producers, National Philanthropic Trust UK. The 2023 report shows that grants from donor-advised funds to other charities were £554.7 million, an increase of 21% over the prior year.
Earlier in the year, The Researchery was greatly excited to have been given the opportunity by Baring Foundation and GiveOut to pioneer the first UK LGBTQI International Giving Report. The research found that average annual funding from the UK was £13.4 million in 2019 and 2020 from UK Government, foundations, corporates and individual philanthropists. This is equivalent to 3p in every £100 given to charities in the UK. The research was launched at the first UK LGBTQI Global Giving Summit on 22 November 2023 where new funding for LGBTQI communities worldwide, totalling more than £40 million over the next five years, was announced by the UK Minister of State (Development and Africa), Rt Hon. Andrew Mitchell.
On the impact evaluation front, work continued with the publication of Big Give’s Women and Girls Match Fund Independent Impact Evaluation. Women and Girls’ charities in the UK currently face a very real threat to their sustainability because of the effects of COVID-19. In addition, women and girls’ charities often struggle to attract philanthropic contributions because of the complex nature of the work and the over reliance on contract/grants income. With match funding provided through the Tampon Tax Fund, administered by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the evaluation used a Theory of Change approach to measure the success of a match funding approach for charities serving women and girls and concluded that the campaign had been, on the whole, hugely successful, with some recommendations for future campaigns.
Coming in 2024…
2024 is already shaping up to be another busy year of helping the sector survive and thrive using data.
Further impact evaluation work will include an assessment of the Enterprise Development Programme run by ACCESS the foundation for social investment; while work commissioned by Voluntary Sector North West aims to ask the question “what next?” for voluntary sector funding of skills and employment.