Charitable grantmaking foundations in the UK have made progress across their practices but are still falling behind on diversity, according to the latest annual Foundation Practice Rating (FPR) report.
The FPR – now in its fifth year of assessing the diversity, accountability and transparency of 100 foundations – found overall improvements, with this year seeing the highest number of overall “A” grades.
Some 12 foundations achieved an A in the latest report, with 11 previously doing so, while those scoring the lowest “D” grade dropped to seven from 12 the year before.
Community foundations continued to outperform grantmakers generally, with all seven included scoring A or B overall.
However, just three foundations overall achieved an A grade for diversity in the latest report, with 41 – the largest proportion – awarded a D.
The FPR said that “diversity remains the weakest domain”, which is “consistent with all previous years”, although scores have improved somewhat year-on-year.
It noted that charitable foundations have “historically not been very diverse”, with survey research published in 2025 finding that trustees of foundations in England and Wales are predominantly male (61%), aged 65+ (65%), retired (54%, against 22% in the population) and white (94%, against 82% in the population).
The survey research also found that foundation trustees are less likely to be disabled than is the general population (85% vs 76%), more likely to have high household income and twice as likely to have a degree or post-school qualification as the general population (68% vs 34%), which the FPR noted “shows little change from 2017” in the areas of gender, age and ethnicity.
Many foundations lack websites
Some 13 foundations achieved an A grade for accountability this year, while 29 achieved a B grade; 27 a C grade and 31 a D grade, although the FPR noted that grades had “improved slightly” since the previous year.
For transparency, the largest proportion of organisations (57) obtained an A grade, followed by 14 obtaining a B grade; 21 obtaining a C grade, and eight a D grade.
As in the previous year, 21 of the cohort of foundations assessed had no website, versus 13 in year three, and 22 in year two.
The FPR said that the “paucity” of foundations’ websites was also once again “striking”, with some foundations having “overly cluttered or limited websites that impede finding basic information”.
It added that a website is important as it is often how potential applicants view a foundation, as well as how others see the sector.
None of the seven foundations rated D on all three domains had a website.
