Funding
We work with expert frontline charities across London, Birmingham and the South of England to drive change across five impact goals. To help us reach our goals, we work with between 40 and 50 expert charities at any one time.
Our partnerships fall into four categories:
Strategic Partnerships
We have a small number of long-term Strategic Partnerships with organisations that share our goals and values. We aim to create transformational change through these relationships, drawing on the full range of support from our colleagues across Berkeley Group. We proactively seek new Strategic Partnerships in line with our business plan commitments; we are unable to accept unsolicited applications.
Community Partnerships
Each Berkeley Group operating business selects a local charity to partner with over a minimum period of three years. These are usually small-to-medium sized organisations working in the local area and provide a focus for staff fundraising and volunteering. New partnerships are often nominated and chosen by Berkeley staff.
Resilience Fund
Our newest funding programme offers grants and support to small-to-medium sized charities to invest in their organisational development, building resilience for the future. Each funding round has a specific focus, and organisations must meet the eligibility criteria to apply.
The Resilience Fund is open to Stage 1 applications between 3 – 28 March 2025. Learn more about the programme criteria and application process here.
Development Fund
A flexible funding pot that allows the Foundation to explore new ideas and respond to opportunities that don’t easily fit into the three main funding streams. A small number of organisations may be invited to apply for funding through the Development Fund if there is a strong alignment of strategic priorities.
In 2023/24 we distributed £3.6m to our charity partners through grants, staff fundraising and payroll giving donations. We openly publish our grants data through 360Giving, an initiative that aims to help UK funders share their data in an open and standard format online.
Expression of Interest
We are unable to accept unsolicited applications outside of the Resilience Fund. However, if you would like to make us aware of your work, please submit an Expression of Interest here. Submitting an Expression of Interest will help us understand if your organisation and programmes align with our strategic priorities. We will be in contact in the future if we have a live funding opportunity relevant to your work.
Our Approach to Funding
We take a long-term relational approach to funding, building trust-based relationships with the organisations we support.
Open and trusting grant-making - We are part of a community of funders and charities committed to open and trusting grant-making, a campaign coordinated by the Institute for Voluntary Action (IVAR).
Long-term partnerships - Most of our grants are for a minimum of three years.
Unrestricted funding - We are committed to increasing the proportion of unrestricted and core funding we are providing, in line with what we know charities need.
25% of all new grants is unrestricted, giving our charity partners the flexibility to apply funds where they are most needed. We also provide additional unrestricted funding to our charity partners through match funding and emergency grants.
In 2024 we increased the proportion of our total funding that is unrestricted or allocated to core costs from 46% to 51%. We are looking to further build on this over the next few years.
Adding value - We use our expertise, networks and relationship with Berkeley Group to strengthen our partnerships - including through staff fundraising and volunteering and brokering jobs for young people.
Learning and sharing - We work with our partners to evaluate and learn from the work we do together and use this to inform and improve our strategy and funding decisions, as well as sharing insights more widely.
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
We are committed to ensuring that equity, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of everything we do. To be able to effectively tackle and challenge inequality through our work, we need to operate in a way that actively promotes equity, diversity and inclusion. This applies both to how we run our organisation, and to the way we make grants and work with our voluntary sector partners.
We launched our EDI plan in 2023, and are committed to regularly reviewing our progress, learning from others and developing our action plan over time. We have adopted the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Data Standard, enabling us to better understand the organisations that are applying to us and working in partnership with us.
SUBHEADING: Find out more about the Berkeley Foundation
To keep up to date with our work and future funding opportunities, please follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.
If you have any questions about our funding opportunities, or your eligibility, please get in touch: info@berkeleyfoundation.org.uk.