Where do foundation grants go?

Feature 1

Foundations are required to provide an account of their grant spending and institutional recipients. Some trusts report grants publicly and fully, others only highlight major grants. Few detail spending by topic and region, and classifications and levels of detail vary widely. This means consistent data is hard to obtain. Information is fragmented and patchy, with no single source. A number of initiatives are attempting to address this.

These include:

• 360GIVING was founded in 2015 by Fran and William Perrin, co-directors of the Indigo Trust. The initiative supports organisations to publish their grants data in an open and comparable way, and helps people to understand and use the data in order to support decision-making and learning across the charitable giving sector. At the time of writing, 27 organisations are publishing their grants to the standard format developed by 360Giving, representing over £8 billion of grants. It is also developing tools – such as the online search platform, GrantNav, that allows easy access and use of the information available.

• DIRECTORY OF SOCIAL CHANGE has analysed the grant-making preferences of 2,500 UK trusts and publishes annual source books to help fundraisers.

• FACTARY maintains a large database of philanthropic donations made by individuals, independent trusts and other funders, called Factary Phi.

• ENVIRONMENTAL FUNDERS NETWORK collates and publishes the environmental grants of 180 funders, with an annual value of around £112 million.

Sector Insight: UK Grantmaking Trusts and Foundations

In 2016 the report included a special analysis on "Where the money goes" - an analysis of 16,500 grants showing that education and health top the billing:

Sector Insight: UK Grantmaking Trusts and Foundations

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