About City Bridge Foundation

Our charity, City Bridge Foundation, was set up around 900 years ago for the maintenance of the old London Bridge. Through bridge tolls, rents, bequests and charitable donations, along with sensible investment and management, the fund has grown over the years.

Our primary aim remains to maintain our five bridges – Tower, London, Southwark, Millennium and Blackfriars bridges – but since 1995 we have also used surplus funds to award grants to charitable organisations across Greater London.

We currently award over £30 million to charities across the capital and have made a further £200 million available in the five years to 2026 to support London’s charity sector.

Our sole trustee is the City of London Corporation – the governing body for the Square Mile. Members of the Court of Common Council – the City Corporation’s primary decision-making body – form the City Bridge Foundation Board and associated committees which govern our activities. Co-opted Members from outside City Corporation sit alongside them. 

City Bridge Foundation is the working name of the historic Bridge House Estates. From 1995 to September 2023 our charity funding team was known as City Bridge Trust. In September 2023, our bridges and charity funding teams were brought together under a new name – City Bridge Foundation.

In March 2024, following four years of considerable change for the charity, and the wider world, we published an updated version of our 25-year strategy, Bridging London 2020 — 2045. 

Closure of rolling grants programme to new applications

Having committed exceptional levels of funding to London’s charitable sector until 2026, a decision was taken to close our rolling grant programmes to new applications for one year, from Tuesday, 8 October 2024. 

This will allow us to manage our existing grants and pre-closure applications, while reviewing and developing our new funding policy, launching in autumn 2025.

• For London and Londoners to be truly connected

• We maintain and promote world-class bridges
• We develop and deliver world-class charitable funding
• We embed and encourage world-class responsible business practices

• Our cross-cutting strategic ambitions of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Climate Action are fundamental to everything we do.

• We stand for London and Londoners in everything we do
  (Service)
  
• We connect to learn and achieve more together
  (Collaboration)
  
• We work towards equity, diversity and inclusion for all
  (Inclusion)
  
• We embrace new ways to drive positive change
  (Innovation)
  
• We challenge ourselves to deliver the best for our communities
  (Ambition)

Our organisation is made up of an incredibly diverse group of people, doing very different jobs – from a Welcome Host at Tower Bridge, to a Data Analyst in our Funding Team.

City Bridge Foundation has been connecting London since 1122

The City of London Corporation is the sole trustee of our charity. Find out more about our diverse functions, board and governance.

The property, financial and social investments of City Bridge Foundation

Find out what it’s like to work here, what types of opportunities we have on offer and what you can receive in return. 

We are committed to being a truly inclusive, anti-racist organisation with a robust, progressive and proactive Equity, Diversity and Inclusion programme. 

At City Bridge Foundation we are passionate about tackling the climate emergency. We embed climate action and sustainability across all of our work, including bridge management, funding and investments.