Feedback from our funded organisations: January to December 2025

City Bridge Foundation has a dedicated Impact and Learning team who review feedback from our funded organisations. This page collates feedback received during 2025. 

This feedback has been received through GrantAdvisor and our Impact & Learning forms, which we ask funded organisations to fill in once a year, and at the end of each grant. Learning visits can also contribute, although these are currently paused. 

The feedback suggests areas where we’re doing well, and other areas where we can do better. It helps us learn how best to support our funded organisations, and to understand the current challenges facing the charitable sector.

Our rolling grants programme closed to new applications in 2024. However, during 2025 we were still managing over 1,600 grants across our portfolio. 

Our new Standing with Londoners funding policy launched in March 2025. The first round of funding (Access to Justice) opened to applications in November 2025, with the first grants awarded in July 2026. 

Along with more than 100 other grant-makers we have signed up to IVAR’s eight commitments to funding organisations in an open and trusting way. 

This table shows the percentage of funded organisations that rated us as performing ​‘well’ or ​‘very well’ against the eight commitments in 2025. 

Median application times in recent years. Note that our 2025 data is based on limited data as our rolling grants programme closed to new applications in 2024. 

We know that making applications takes precious time. We are refining our application and assessment processes to be faster, more efficient and more inclusive. 

Webinars and pre-application phone calls now ensure applicants are better briefed before they apply. Application forms have fewer questions, which are more focussed. 

During 2025, the average time it took for an applicant to receive a funding decision was 6.2 months.

Although our rolling grants programme was no longer open to applications during 2025, some applications from the previous year were still being processed.

By introducing a two-stage assessment process, we aim to reduce first-stage decision times to around four months. Second-stage decisions are still expected to take around six months.

Feedback received during 2025 including the following: 

We’ve recently published a new page on our website listing free resources and guidance for charities, social enterprises, community groups, and other not-for-profit organisations. This includes digital and tech support. 

We also share news of free digital and tech support opportunities in our monthly newsletter. 

We have two new funding programmes in development, Economic Justice and Racial Justice. At this stage we cannot advise on eligibility for specific programmes, although our General eligibility and exclusions page is a useful starting point. 

We will be organising face-to-face and/​or online group learning sessions for organisations funded under our four Standing with Londoners programme areas: Access to Justice, Climate and Environmental Justice, Economic Justice and Racial Justice. 

These sessions will be an opportunity for funded organisations to network with their peers and share learning and insights. These will take place at least once a year. 

Our Funding Managers can be very busy, but should be available if a funded organisation needs advice or guidance concerning their grant. All newly funded organisations will receive a one-to-one welcome call with a member of our funding team.

Positive feedback over the year included responses such as:: 

Our monthly e‑bulletin is free for anyone to sign up to. 

• Securing future funding and income generation – as well as transitioning away from a grant as it ends
• Growing demand and growing complexity of demand
• Managing capacity
• Opportunities for young people 
• Improving digital offering
• Sustaining services in the long term
• Rising costs

At City Bridge Foundation we are deeply aware of the challenges facing London’s charitable sector. Our new Standing with Londoners funding policy is designed to offer flexible, long-term, core and unrestricted funding, with a stronger focus on tackling the root causes of the challenges faced by the capital’s communities.

As we progress our new funding policy we are also providing £10 million in Strategic Transition Awards, to support 62 organisations across London until 2032. Through these one-off investments, City Bridge Foundation is standing alongside organisations it has funded over many years, helping to sustain services, retain expertise and protect progress during a period of change.

We cannot provide funding to everyone who needs it but we will continue to share our and others’ funding opportunities in our monthly newsletter. The newsletter also signposts other training and support opportunities, designed to empower London’s charitable and social investment sector.

We also provide other forms of funding and we collaborate with other funders and partners to increase the reach and impact of our grant-making and philanthropic work. For instance, at time of writing we’re funding the following open grant programmes. 

City Bridge Foundation provides a range of free, non-financial support options for funded organisations. We call this our Funder Plus offer. 

Of the 811 organisations whose feedback was received in this period, 102 had made use of our specialist Funder Plus support and 191 had attended learning events, received reduced hire costs for event spaces, or were referred to our trustee’s employee volunteering programme. 

Of those who had not participated with any of our free support options:

• 185 told us they didn’t have time
• 166 didn’t know about them
• 198 gave another reason (capacity, need etc)

We fully understand that funded organisations may lack the time or resources to commit to our longer-term Funder Plus offers, which is why we share monthly updates highlighting other free training opportunities. Many of these can be as short as one or two hours. 

We are now evolving our Funder Plus offer to align with our new funding. Delivery of our current Funder Plus programme will be completed by the end of March 2027. 

We aim to gradually phase in a new Funder Plus offer from autumn 2026.

This will include

• Skills development and learning
• Peer connection and shared insight
• Collective opportunities to influence change
• Events and workshops tailored to funded organisations’ needs

During 2025 our top impact areas, based on number of grants awarded, were:

GrantAdvisor photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash