The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation has launched a new funding strategy which will include a focus on giving unrestricted grants and offering long-term funding.

The charity, which has an endowment of around £900m, said its new strategy will also provide much more definition about what the foundation will fund, in an effort to reduce the number of unsuccessful applications, and will offer long-term funding to ensure charities can carry out projects to completion.

The charity says it wants to back individuals with good ideas, ensure that it funds unfashionable causes, and support charities to build networks.

Caroline Mason, chief executive of the foundation, said the previous strategy did not offer charities a clear direction.

“We found our previous strategy, established four to five years ago, was very responsive to new ideas – but it had no definitive direction of travel mapped out,” she said. “That was appropriate to the environment back then, but right now people don’t have time to come pitching to us and dreaming up ideas that might or might not be right.

“So we’re being really definitive in each of the areas in which we work.”

• The full interview with Caroline Mason, the chief executive of Esmee Fairbairn, was published in the April edition of Charity Finance is available for online subscribers here. Find out more about subscribing to Charity Finance.