Method & Data
Introduction
This is the first year that 360Giving has compiled the data in this way and there have been a number of learnings about the process as well as about the data itself. The approach here is presented as a work in progress for input and feedback to inform future analysis.
We have used the best data available to us at the time of publication, and while all reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, we cannot guarantee this. We welcome feedback on the quality of the data and the approach.
Segmentation
The segmentation has been designed in a way to support alignment with other research and analysis, where possible. It is recognised that there are a number of grey areas where segments might overlap or where there wasn’t enough information available and assumptions needed to be made about the segmentation – but all organisations identified for inclusion in the analysis were allocated to a single segment. This allocation involves an element of judgement based on some of the information and data available. The segments are indicative only to help understanding of the picture.
| Category | Segment | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charity | Charity | Grantmaking alongside other charitable services or supporting a single cause/institution/or members only | Motability, AMREF, Cancer Research UK, Solace Women’s Aid |
| NHS/Hospital Foundation | Hospital Foundations and related charities that make grants to support health work including those that make grants to some organisations outside the NHS | ||
| Grantmaker | Community Foundation | Public charity that typically focuses on supporting a geographical area, primarily by facilitating and pooling donations used to address community needs and support local charities. A Member of UKCF | Community Foundation Serving Tyne and Wear & Northumberland, Quartet Community Foundation |
| Corporate Foundation | Charitable foundations set up by businesses with funding from endowments, annual covenants, or gifts. | Lloyds Bank Foundation, Vodafone Foundation | |
| Family Foundation | Foundations funded principally by the personal gift of an individual donor, family or family business | Pears Foundation, Tudor Trust | |
| Wellcome Trust | Technically a Family Foundation but so large that it is included in a category of its own to support understanding of the data | The Wellcome Trust | |
| Fundraising Grantmaker | Raises money from the public in order to make grants. Often through specific appeals – or as placed based or thematic giving schemes | BBC Children in Need, Camden Giving, Rosa, People’s Postcode Lottery | |
| Member/ trade funded | Foundations funded by trade bodies and members, including Livery Companies | Art Fund, The Clothworkers Foundation, Transport Benevolent Fund | |
| Government/Lottery- endowed | Foundations established by government or lottery bodies but independent of them | NESTA, Local Trust, Power to Change Trust, Youth Endowment Fund | |
| General grantmaker | Other trusts and foundations | John Lyon’s Charity, Henry Smith Charity | |
| Small grantmaker | Under the threshold for Charity Commission Annual Return and limited data available from other sources so uncategorised. Not in categories above | The Cleary Foundation, Harold Craxton Memorial Trust | |
| Government | Central | Whitehall Department | Ministry of Defence, Department for Education |
| Local | Local Council within the UK. Includes unitary authorities, district, county, parish councils, combined authorities. | Manchester City Council, Greater London Authority | |
| Devolved | Devolved government within the UK. Country only (combined authorities are part of Local Authorities) | Scottish Government, Welsh Government, Northern Ireland Executive | |
| Arms Length Body | Body attached to a central government department or a non departmental government body. Not including National Lottery Distributors | UK Research and Innovation, Natural England | |
| Lottery | Lottery Distributor | Distributor of National Lottery funding. Also sometimes distribute government and other funds. | National Lottery Community Fund, Arts Council England |
| Other | Donor Advised Fund | A charitable vehicle whose main purpose is to tax effective giving for a range of donors who direct the grantmaking.
Includes donation platforms where the donor specifies the charity |
Master Charitable Trust,
Charities Aid Foundation |
| International Grantmaker | Grantmaker based overseas that makes grants to UK institutions | Oak Foundation |
Excluded organisations
- “Friends of” “PTAs” and fundraising subsidiaries of charities
- School trusts
- Organisations with an income AND expenditure of under £5k established before 2020
In addition there were some organisations that were not deliberately excluded, but very difficult to identify in publicly available information.
Sources of data
Grantmaking
The primary source of data about UK grantmakers is the three regulators of charities: the Charity Commission for England and Wales (CCEW), the Scottish Charity regulator (OSCR) and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI). Data extracts from each of these regulators was used to construct a list of possible grantmakers, which was then manually checked and cleaned against our definition of a grantmaker.
Where possible, information given to the regulators was checked against the organisations’ annual accounts and amended if necessary. For example, data from CCEW does not contain the amount of spending on grants to individuals, so this was manually added to our data where available.
Where there were small organisations that were not required to complete an annual return to the Charity Commission and therefore the grantmaking expenditure was not available, the organisational expenditure was used.
Data on grantmakers that are not registered charities (for example central government or lottery distributors) was sourced from data published by those organisations. Estimates of local government grantmaking come from “Grants for Good: Exploring local authority grant-making to the VCSE sector” (Directory of Social Change, 2023).
The list of grantmakers was also checked against other data sources, including Foundation Giving Trends (published by the Association of Charitable Foundations), members of the Association of Charitable Organisations (ACO, the membership body for organisations that make grants to individuals) and 360Giving’s register of grantmakers who publish data.
Grants
Data on grants comes from data published by grantmakers using the 360Giving Data Standard. This data is gathered from grantmakers by the 360Giving Datastore.
This data was supplemented by grantmaking data from Lottery distributors published on the National Lottery grants database. This data was deduplicated with other data published in the 360Giving Data Standard by Lottery distributors. The National Lottery Grants Database was used because some lottery distributors do not yet publish their data using the 360Giving Data Standard.
A number of large government grants were excluded from the analysis as they were less relevant to our understanding of the civil society grantmaking picture or might have skewed this understanding. Grants were excluded where they are government to government transfer, either between central government and other government departments or from central government to local authorities. Other inclusions included grants to schools, private sector organisations and international institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations.
Grant information is based on the grants published using the 360Giving Data Standard, not all grants.
Grant duration is available for around 35% of grants. Where available, the grant duration has been used to adjust the grant amount to an annual figure.
Recipients
The Recipient information is only available on grants published using the 360Giving Data Standard, not all the grantmaking in the overall grantmaking picture.
Data on grant recipients was added using the organisation identifiers included by grant publishers. Where a grant recipient can be matched to a charity record, the charity’s record from the Charity Commission was used to add financial and demographic details about that charity. This includes details of the country based on the postcode of the charity’s registered office.
Data
360Giving is committed to open data. The data on Grantmakers included in this report can be downloaded:
- Download all tables and charts used in the report
- Download a list of all grantmakers featured in the report
- View grants data on GrantNav
Feedback
360Giving welcomes feedback on this report, approach, or data to inform our future work.