Developing our new funding policy

At City Bridge Foundation we aim to be an adaptive, responsive funder. As London’s largest independent funder we support the capital’s charitable sector with more than £30m in grants each year.

To ensure we best meet the future needs of London and Londoners in a rapidly changing world, we are working on a new Future Funding Policy.

This work is being supported by extensive research and policy analysis, evidence gathering, a review of our funding, wide-ranging stakeholder engagement and more.

Our consultation so far has included six events with more than 230 external stakeholders, a survey of over 1,000 Londoners, and more than 15 learning sessions with the City Bridge Foundation team, our Board and Funding Committee.

We have also undertaken a full review of our funding practices and an evaluation of our current funding strategy, Bridging Divides.

We’re aiming to launch at least one funding programme under the new policy in autumn 2025, with further programmes to follow.

This update from Sacha Rose-Smith, our Chief Funding Director, provides an overview of the development of the new 10-year funding policy.

Published 4 November 2024

Our consultation event at the Barbican in March 2024 brought together more than 130 participants representing London’s civil society, local and central government, policy and research, the academic sector and more.

Their insights and inputs provided a powerful start to our consultation process. The live event was followed by an online consultation event for those unable to attend the Barbican in person.

This was then followed by Visioning London II sessions with equity-focused organisations in November and December 2024.

Envisioning London 2035 at the Barbican. Video length two minutes.

In May 2024 we held a roundtable consultation with a panel of 14 young Londoners, convened by The Prince’s Trust*. We asked for their thoughts on how London could change for the better over the next decade, and the role we might play in that.

* Now The Kings Trust

We asked young people how we could make London better. This is what they said. Video length less than three minutes.