Changing grantmaking spend

Grantmakers have increased their spending during the pandemic

Using expenditure data from the Charity Commission annual return, the median annual spend for a 360Giving publisher which is a registered charity (mostly comprising of trusts and foundations) in England and Wales was £3.3 million in 2020-21, compared to around £2.5 million between 2017-18 and 2019-20.

This data is based on those registered charities that have Charity Commission records for all the years included, as records for the 2020-21 financial year are not yet complete. The records represent 62% of funders who have returned data to the Charity Commission.

Looking at individual funders, 55% increased their spending by more than 10% compared to the average of the three previous years, while 20% of funders saw a decrease.

These figures are also born out by looking at the published 360Giving data for these funders. 50% of funders with complete grants data across those years saw an increase in grant amounts.