(3 minute read)
Published: 18 March 2026
Written by: Sufina Ahmad, Director
John Ellerman Foundation has been supporting the Foundation Practice Rating (FPR) since it started five years ago. The FPR is a rating system that assesses the practices of UK-based trusts and foundations in relation to diversity, accountability and transparency. At its core, it is a tool and service for trusts and foundations that provides clarity on best and promising practice in each of these areas and it enables those that are rated to understand their strengths and weaknesses, as well as offering practical ways to make improvements. All of the FPR’s assessment processes and results are shared publicly through the Foundation Practice Rating website, which can be accessed by clicking here.
The FPR assigns a rating of A, B, C or D to each of the three ‘pillars’ of diversity, accountability and transparency, which then results in an overall rating being given. The assessments are carried out by the research consultancy Giving Evidence. Friends Provident Foundation lead on the design and day to day running of the FPR. The FPR is a funder collaboration, with a number of different funders, including John Ellerman Foundation, all contributing funds and their ideas.
We are pleased that John Ellerman Foundation has achieved an A rating in the 2026 results, for the fourth year in a row. Just as we have in previous years, we are using our results to identify areas where we can make further improvements in relation to diversity, accountability and transparency.
To-date, the FPR has been directly responsible for a range of changes we have implemented. This includes, but is not limited to, a full website accessibility audit, which resulted in us writing our first ever accessibility statement for our website. We updated our funding guidelines so that they were also available in the Welsh language. We have also updated our offer to applicants so that it includes the option of submitting an application in another format, other than written, and we have made it clearer that applicants can discuss their accessibility requirements with our Grants Officer before making a submission to us.
We have made updates to our publicly available DEI Policy to include our position on setting diversity targets for staff and Trustees. Having explored this topic with the Board and team, as well as reviewing the practices of peer organisations, we have decided not to set targets. We feel that the small size of our team and Board (currently six staff and seven Trustees) places us at risk of being unable to appoint someone from a diverse background because we are exceeding targets that have been set. However, as a UK-wide funder, we recognise the importance of seeking to reflect minoritised UK demographics in our work. We do however continue to share our staff and Trustee DEI data annually in our Annual Report and Accounts.
The year ahead
Over the last five years, the Foundation has been working hard on measuring and sharing the impact of our work, as part of our desire to be a learning organisation. We reaffirmed this commitment as part of our new strategy for 2025 to 2030, which we launched in June 2025. We shared the Impact Framework for our strategy in October 2025, and as part of this have committed to ensuring that we publish an annual research and reflection piece that considers the progress we are making in relation to our grantmaking and investing and within the wider context that we are operating in. This will enable us to consider the progress we are making (or not) in relation to our overall aim and strategy, and the value we think we have been able to add. We also hope that it will mean we can evolve and adapt the work we are doing and support others with insights that might inform their own work and thinking. We think that sharing impact is a vital form of accountability and transparency too, which means that those we work with can see how we seek to make informed decisions, as well as offering them the opportunity to query us when they think we might not be doing this.
Our approach to sharing our impact builds on our Impact Framework for our previous strategy, which ran from 2022 to 2025. As part of this strategy we formed some internal processes and practices that enabled us to gather data more effectively, and then used this in the form of some external publications and reports about our work, including on aspects of our grantmaking relating to the UK Overseas Territories and Museums and Galleries. We also shared as much as we could about our impact through our blog, which is updated on a monthly basis, and in our Annual Report and Accounts. You can find examples of our publications by clicking here on our website. Our blog can be accessed by clicking here on our website.
As I think back on five years of being actively involved in the FPR, I can see the many ways in which it has offered us the opportunity to reflect deeply and show real accountability to those we serve and work with. This matters greatly, as in organisation like ours, where there are six of us working with plenty to do, we can risk getting stuck in repeating patterns and keeping things the same year in year out. The FPR encourages us to change: to be more transparent, accountable and diverse. Happily though, it is not simply us that change, as a result of the FPR. The sector more widely changes too. This ends up being of benefit to those we fund and wider society. That kind of impact matters deeply.