Governance
A very good year, and we gave away seven per cent
The 2025 accounts are published. Income was the highest we have ever had. Grant-making was the lowest since 2020. Both of those things are our own doing.
3 minute read
The examined accounts for 2025 are now on the reports page. Ellen Lefevre signed them off in September and had no concerns.
We do.
Income for the year was £256,295. That is half as much again as 2024, and more than we have ever received.
We gave away £18,210.
That is seven per cent. Our target is half.
How it happened
There was no crisis and no change of heart. We simply made too few decisions, and the ones we made were small. Two emergency appeals took £15,000 between them — Gaza and the Afghanistan earthquake — and four smaller grants made up the rest.
Meanwhile the money kept arriving. Donations and Gift Aid together came to £249,919. By 31 December we were holding £221,961 in cash.
A grant-making charity sitting on a fifth of a million pounds in a bank account is a savings account with a nicer letterhead.
What did go right
The endowment did what it was built to do. It ended the year worth £513,950 against a cost of £459,043, and it carried on doing measurable good while it sat there — 181 tonnes of CO₂ avoided, 1.3 million litres of clean water, 278 hours of education delivered, all attributable to our holding alone.
Running the whole thing cost £1,826. That is 0.7% of income, and we intend to keep it that way.
Total funds now stand at £681,004. On any ordinary measure, 2025 was the Foundation's best year.
What happens next
More grants, sooner, and larger ones.
The cash balance is the problem and the opportunity in the same number: it is already sitting there, already Gift Aided, already ours to give. We do not need to raise anything to fix this. We need to decide.
If you know a UK charity doing a lot of good per pound, tell us. Most of our smaller grants start as an email from someone who knows a charity well, and we would rather have too many suggestions than too few.