Future Funding Policy — Frequently Asked Questions

City Bridge Foundation launched it’s new ten-year funding policy — Standing with Londoners — in March 2025. With a first funding programme scheduled to launch in autumn 2025, we have produced a list of FAQs for those interested in the development of this programme.

Since the launch of our previous funding policy, Bridging Divides, the external context has changed significantly. During this period there has been a cost-of-living crisis, a pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and domestic political turmoil – all of these have had a dramatic and lasting impact on the lives of Londoners.

Given these changes in the external context over the last few years, it is important to ensure that City Bridge Foundation’s funding practice and policy meets the needs of Londoners and civil society.

In 2024 we refreshed our overarching strategy, Bridging London 2020 — 2045, reaffirming our values and commitments to equity, diversity and inclusion, and climate action.

Our funding approach has continued to evolve amidst changes in the sector, including growing demand, collaborative funding approaches and shifting funder practice.

We have distributed more than £840m since we opened for funding in 1995. A review of our reserves in 2019/2020 meant we could offer an additional £200 million in funding to support the sector when it needed it most. We have now committed most of those additional funds and will gradually draw down the remainder, returning to our normal levels of grant spending.

Given changes in the external and internal context over the last few years, it is important to ensure that our funding practice and policy meets the needs of Londoners and civil society. 

As we continue to shape how our future funding will work, our team will continue to process a backlog of applications and award grants to successful applicants.

In March 2024, City Bridge Foundation started the process of developing a new 10-year funding policy. The policy was informed by a review of our past funding practice, data, evidence-gathering and a wide-ranging consultation — which included funded organisations, other funders, civil society partners, local government, young Londoners, policy and research specialists and some members of the public. This has included:

• six events with more than 230 external stakeholders
• a survey conducted independently of over 1,000 Londoners
• more than 15 learning sessions with the City Bridge Foundation team, Board and Funding Committee
• mapping of the priorities of other funders in London
• reviewing the key social issues impacting Londoners

We published our new ten-year funding policy in March 2025. We are committed to ongoing sector engagement, co-production and working in partnership. With our new policy in place, we plan to identify partners and invite Expressions of Interest to support us on detailed programme development.

Our new funding policy is informed by long-standing calls from civil society and charities on what is needed to support communities as well as knowledge and insights gained as London’s largest independent charitable funder.

We will work closely with communities, civil society, funders and key partners to co-produce and adapt our programmes over the next ten years.

The policy was endorsed by the City Bridge Foundation Board in February 2025 and the City of London Corporation in March 2025.

During summer 2025, we will start on programme development with a view to launching at least one funding programme in autumn 2025, with more to follow in 2026 and beyond.

Our funding policy, Standing with Londoners, sets out how we will fund in future and high-level goals aligned to our over-arching Bridging London strategy. The precise detail of our funding programmes and what we will fund is still in development with work to take place during 2025 and beyond.

There will be important elements of continuity, not least our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion and to addressing climate change.

Social justice

We want to be a social justice funder — supporting efforts that tackle the causes of injustice — especially efforts that empower affected communities themselves to take the action needed. We are committed to combatting inequality and achieving social justice through our funding.

Evidence on effective social change work suggests that a combination of activities and approaches are needed to shift the dial on complex social problems.

Systems change

We want to grow our funding in the areas of ​’systems change’ to address both the symptoms and root causes of social injustice. Our funding portfolio will continue to focus on supporting work that meets immediate needs, but will have a growing emphasis on long-term prevention and root causes, aiming to transform the underlying and interconnected systems that perpetuate inequality.

Ecosystems & field-building

Through an ecosystems and field-building approach, we will work in a deeper and more intentional way to target our resources and funding to support a range of actors and activities to work for change.

By ​‘field’ we mean all the stakeholders working to address common social justice issues. We want to play our part, through our funding, our investments and our activities, to support a field’s mission and movements.

Framework

We are looking at how we can deploy our resources through grants, our Funder Plus offer, social investment and enterprise support, to support the following activities:

• Connecting Communities, through funding civil society infrastructure, building capacity, networks and convening;
• Meeting Needs, through funding advice, support and crisis interventions;
• Catalysing Change, funding advocacy, campaigns and community organising.

Across City Bridge Foundation, we will also Stand with Londoners by using our voice, assets and networks to advocate for social justice across our priority areas.

Justice visions

We have identified four visions for a fairer London which will be the focus of our funding programmes. For now, these are: climate and environmental justice, access to justice, racial justice and economic justice. These are vital entry points to achieving social justice. These are interconnected, yet broad areas so we will work with partners in 2025 and beyond to more clearly define the focus of our funding programmes.

Crisis and emergency funding

We are exploring options to allocate a ring-fenced budget for a Crisis and Emergency Fund, to allow for timely and effective responses to crises and emergencies that impact Londoners and/​or London’s voluntary sector.

Funder Plus

Our Funder Plus offer will evolve to reflect our justice priorities and address London’s most pressing challenges.

Further information about the funding criteria and eligibility for our new programmes will be available when we open for funding in autumn 2025.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is fundamental to our approach in tackling inequality and delivering social justice for marginalised Londoners. This includes identities such as race, disability, religion, socioeconomic background, gender and sexuality.

Intersectionality is also taken into account, recognising a range of intersecting identities including factors such as migration status, disability or age.

After an in-depth review of how funded organisations have experienced City Bridge Foundation, we’re implementing new practices to ensure we are a more equitable funder.

• We will offer a range of funding and support options designed to enhance the capacity and resilience of funded organisations
• We will prioritise organisations led by and for members of the communities they serve, that are experiencing specific forms of disadvantage and marginalisation (and provide clear definitions and language on this)

Applicants and funded partners will soon have a different experience:

• they’ll be able to pick up the phone to us for pre-application support
• application processes/​pathways will be designed to meet the needs of applicant organisations
• we will support flexible, long-term, core and unrestricted funding
• a more flexible and relational funder
• streamlined processes

We have seen a huge rise in demand for grant funding in recent years. As we identify our new priorities and review and revisit our funding budget, it is inevitable that there will be areas that we can no longer fund.

As we transition from our old funding policy to our new one, we are exploring options on how we can responsibly narrow our focus and in some cases offer transitional (one off) funding or ongoing legacy grants. Further information about our plans will be available in due course.

We recognise that it is a challenging environment for London’s civil society and communities. We will work to ensure that we are transparent as possible about our future priorities and programmes as they are agreed, with clear guidelines for potential applicants and funded partners.