What we do
Connecting communities and building partnerships for a fairer London
Our key areas of work include:
About our work
City Bridge Foundation was established over 900 years ago and now manages and maintains five of London’s city Bridges, at no cost to the taxpayer. We are powered through property and financial investments, initially supported and funded by mediaeval Londoners to maintain the first stone London Bridge.
Funds surplus to the Bridges’ needs are distributed each year to organisations that are working for a fairer, greener Capital — via our funding team.
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.
Through all of our work, we want to see a flourishing society, where every person in London is truly connected — physically by world-class, sustainable bridges — and socially and digitally through thriving communities that have access to a diversity of social, cultural and economic opportunities.
Our longevity, diverse charitable purposes, large asset base and historic relationship with our corporate Trustee (the City of London Corporation), places us in a unique position to achieve our vision of ‘every person in London becoming truly connected’.
Note: City Bridge Foundation is the working name of the historic Bridge House Estates.
Bridging London
Our Bridging London strategy provides the framework for our activities and the collective impact we seek to deliver.
Firstly, through our maintenance and support for our five bridges and secondly through our charitable funding and activities — which are aimed at tackling inequality and disadvantage across Greater London.
These two activities are enabled through the careful stewardship of our portfolio of investments.
How we deliver our work
Taking a values led approach
To achieve our vision, we deliver our charitable objectives by committing to a values-led approach of being:
- Catalytic: acting as a catalyst for positive change in London through exemplary delivery of our activities and through our convening and influencing role
- Sustainable: delivering our activities and managing all of assets in the most sustainable, ethical and responsible ways possible
- Impact driven: placing learning and impact at the heart of all that we do to ensure we achieve positive impact at scale, now and in the future
We have made ambitious and growing commitments to climate action, alongside other issues such as social mobility, modern slavery, and equity, diversity and inclusion.
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.
We are committed to being a truly inclusive, anti-racist organisation with a robust, progressive and proactive Equity, Diversity and Inclusion programme.
Related content
Meet our new poet-in-residence
Cecilia Knapp is our first ever poet-in-residence, celebrating our five bridges, our history, our role as a major funder, and the work of the many organisations we support.