(3 minute read)
Published: 28 August 2025
Written by: Sufina Ahmad, Director
We are pleased to be able to share our latest Annual Report and Financial Accounts for the 12 months to 31 March 2025, which can be accessed by clicking here.
This year’s Annual Report and Accounts is our final report relating to our Strategy for 2022 to 2025. For our last three annual reports, including this one, we have shared the progress we have been making on our strategy. This year, we also produced a summary report for our last strategy, which can be accessed by clicking here.
We hope that reports like our Annual Report and Accounts, our blog page, and our recently published summary report for our last strategy are all examples of the ways in which we are committed to learning from our work and sharing what we are doing in transparent and accountable ways. We try hard to be an effective organisation, and so much of this requires us to be open to feedback, continuous improvement and learning from and sharing with others.
This year’s Annual Report and Accounts was a really important opportunity for reflection. We have tried to take the learning and findings from our last strategy to support with the development of our new strategy for 2025 to 2030. This strategy was launched in June 2025, and you can find out more about it here in this blog post by clicking here.
Between April 2024 and March 2025, key highlights for the Foundation have included:
- Staffing changes: We are pleased to have been joined by Beth Barker as our Grants Officer, and Alice Thornton as our Head of Research and Impact in April and May 2024 respectively. They are great additions to our team, and we have very much enjoyed working with them. Lauren Williamson, our Executive Assistant, also returned to work after a year of maternity leave. We are thrilled to have her back with us.
- Governance updates: We launched our first ever Board Shadowing Scheme and it was wonderful to welcome Hirra Khan Adeogun, Nell Hardy and Charlotte Leask to our Board for six months. As three individuals from diverse backgrounds and with lived experience of poverty, they were invited to be part of our Board as active observers and contributors. Our learning report on the Board Shadowing Scheme can be found by clicking here, and we are looking forward to delivering this Scheme again in future years. We also moved to a Chair and Vice Chair governance model, which came into effect at the beginning of April 2025. We were sad to see our Chair Peter Kyle CBE step down at the end of March, and are very grateful to him for his leadership and dedication to the Foundation. We are excited though to have Geraldine Blake and Tufyal Choudhury step up into the roles of Chair and Vice Chair, respectively.
- Policy and communications work: We published the new versions of our Investment Policy and our funding guidelines – both of which we update on an annual basis to incorporate feedback and new ideas and ways of working. We also agreed our first ever Social Investment Policy in January 2025 and have agreed our first social investment through this policy. The Foundation also took the decision in March 2025 on our time horizon. We are returning to an in perpetuity model, which means we intend to exist forever.
- Impact and learning work: We shared a number of reports this year, including two that relate to our UKOTs Fund and our Museums and Galleries Fund. We also had a full year of implementation in relation to our Impact Framework and we published the first set of data relating to our use of the DEI Data Standard too. We continue to share annual updates on our progress relating to the Funder Commitment on Climate Change and were thrilled to be awarded an A rating on the Foundation Practice Rating, which assesses grantmakers on diversity, accountability and transparency.
- Partnership working: We partnered with the Environmental Funders Network to set up the UK Overseas Territories (UKOTs) Learning Network, as part of our continued commitment to and leadership in this area of funding. We hope to be able to launch our third round of the UKOTs Fund in this financial year – providing we can raise sufficient funds from other funders, in addition to the funds we will commit. We also supported the study tours of colleagues linked to Philanthropy Australia and Community Foundations Canada. We continued to be active members of our various membership bodies too, including the Charities Responsible Investment Network.
- Strategy development: Over the last year, we have spent time as a Board and team, and through engagement with others, including fellow investors and grantmakers, policy makers, and our applicants and grant-holders, to consider the approach we should take in our next strategy.
In a year where we received nearly 600 applications, it remains clear that our applicants and grant-holders are experiencing many pressures relating to their work. We try hard to ensure that the small way in which we can support organisations is as helpful and impactful as possible, and have spent time this year further improving aspects of our grantmaking, including in relation to accessibility and inclusion.
The process of launching and now delivering our new strategy for 2025 to 2030 in this age of interconnected global threats affecting people, society and the natural world, has been clarifying. It’s been difficult too, especially as we began to realise the kinds of changes we needed to consider and ultimately make as an organisation. The next few years will be a time for bold transitions, and we look forward to continuing to share our progress.