ACF report on how foundations are addressing increased demand
3 September
ACF research and insights reports now published: Foundations in Focus 2024
The Association of Charitable Foundation’s has published a new report – Foundations in Focus. This takes views from a sample of 37 foundations’ experiences navigating a challenging financial year with a particular focus on grantmaking and investments.
Against the challenging environment, foundations attempted to meet the growing demand, seeking to be more flexible in their grant-making approach. Some began or continued offering more flexible grants and increased grant values to account for the higher costs grant-holders faced due to inflation and the cost-of-living crisis. More foundations began offering funding specifically for organisational and administrative expenses to ensure that grant-holders could maintain their essential functions despite the challenging financial landscape. In some cases, foundations also reviewed and adapted their tools and processes to streamline the application process to make it easier for grant-holders and to allow staff to focus more on the activity of grant-making.
Key findings are:
- Growth in demand for grants across sector – increased grant applications and higher value grant requests.
- Foundations made strategic responses to rising need – flexible grant making approaches, strategic mission alignment, more targeted funding, funder plus models of support introduced, increased funding to reflect inflation and cost of living and strategic financial moves like increasing draw downs.
- Financial impacts on investments and incomes – shifts in investment approaches, increased focus on ESG investments, spending higher despite lower returns and diversifying income.
Read the report here
Yorkshire Funders is doing a similar survey during September and would like to hear from you. Click here to complete the survey.