The Foundation Practice Rating (FPR) – an independent assessment of 100 of the UK’s private and community grantmakers – is in its fourth year. It was created by Friends Provident Foundation; the research and analysis is undertaken by consultancy Giving Evidence, and it is supported by a coalition of funders of all sizes in the UK. Launched in 2021, the FPR takes a look at how foundations perform on three interlinked domains – diversity, accountability and transparency. This year, the open coalition of foundations that support and fund the project published the fourth report of the results. We think the data for this year makes interesting reading and contributes important information to the developing picture of philanthropy and giving in the UK.

Background

To refresh readers’ memories: each year, the FPR makes a fresh selection of 100 of the largest (by funds) UK-based charitable grantmaking foundations and carries out an independent and objective assessment by scouring publicly available information to answer nearly 100 questions about each one. The FPR takes the stance of a prospective applicant, so uses only information they might be able to see and spending up to two hours searching for. Each included foundation is assessed by two researchers operating independently, and their answers are compared and moderated by a third. Foundations are exempt from questions that are not relevant to them; for example, a foundation with no staff would not be expected to publish gender pay-gap data, so foundations are not penalised for having a small staff size.