Deliver impact with an effective grant programme

Grantmaking is all about helping charities respond to areas of pressing need, enable vital service delivery and boost their resilience in the long-term.

Together, we can design and deliver your grant programme to help maximise your impact and manage risk. 

To do this, we bring together the social need and your strategic goals as a funder. Our end-to-end grantmaking service ensures you’re offering an effective and efficient programme that creates real impact in the communities you support.

Our ambitious and innovative approach aims to inspire funders to enable fair, accessible and transparent grantmaking practices.

Designing your grant programme

We design programmes that target specific areas of social need, often identified by our own research. We work with you to meet these needs, in line with your ambitions, so that together we can make a difference to the lives of individuals and communities across the UK and internationally.

As grant makers we promote engaged and active philanthropy, working with our funders to improve their effectiveness and ability to achieve impact in the long term. We can help you:

  • Design a programme to achieve your desired impact    
  • Ensure your grantmaking meets distinct areas of social need
  • Navigate the challenges of making grants
  • Focus your programme to ensure it reaches the right applicants


Delivering your grant programme

We can ensure your grant programme runs efficiently. We can help you:
  • Target and market your grant programme effectively
  • Encourage diversity of applicants
  • Provide guidance on the application process
  • Carry out a robust process of charity selection, including charity verification for non-UK charities
  • Pay grants on your behalf
  • Monitor the progress of grants through an online platform
  • Capture the outcomes of your programme

Measuring your impact

Our monitoring and evaluation process allows us to measure the impact of your grants and provide valuable insights to make greater impact. We aim to ensure that the grants meet expected outcomes and can improve the programme based on initial learnings. Our learnings and prior experience help inform the design of new programmes.

We also capture and share the stories of the grants to evidence their impact.

 

What you'll get from us as grantmaking experts

There's no one-size-fits-all approach to grantmaking. It's about who you are and the impact you want to achieve. We'll help you get there with our:

As a funder and grant maker ourselves, we understand what’s required to make an impact where it’s needed most. We draw on over 70 years’ experience working with clients across sectors, so we know what works in reaching causes and handling funds safely.

We awarded over £27 million in grants to UK and international charities in 2021/22.

We work with governments, charities and donors to achieve maximum impact. CAF’s respected research and continuous learning informs our approach to grantmaking – providing support where it’s needed most.

We offer impartial advice, focused on your ambitions, and reflecting our best practice principles to support your needs and those of communities.

We’re trusted by large organisations, including the UK Government, to run their grant programmes.

As a funder and grant maker ourselves, we understand what’s required to make an impact where it’s needed most. We draw on over 70 years’ experience working with clients across sectors, so we know what works in reaching causes and handling funds safely.

We awarded over £27 million in grants to UK and international charities in 2021/22.


Meet our grantmaking team.

How we've helped funders with their grantmaking

CAF Resilience Fund | DCMS and ABI

+

Science and Me | Johnson Matthey

+

Patient Organisations Recovery Fund | AstraZeneca

+

Building charity resilience ✖

CAF Resilience Fund

The CAF Resilience Fund is focused on the individuals and communities hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. A funding pot of £40 million was provided by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and kindly matched by the UK’s insurance and long-term savings industry. The fund offered emergency funding, as well as grants and tailored support to help organisations build their organisational resilience.

“The Government is committed to supporting communities who have been hit hardest by the pandemic. I’m grateful to the Charities Aid Foundation for their fantastic work distributing the funding and supporting organisations carrying out critical work.”
Nigel Hiddleston, Minister for Sport, Tourism, Civil Society and Youth

Inspiring tomorrow’s scientists ✖

Girl in science museum

Johnson Matthey have committed to investing at least £1 million every year in community engagement to address the needs of their local communities and fund their flagship programme across hundreds of sites around the world. CAF’s Impact Advisory service and grantmaking capabilities are helping inspire and empower young minds to think positively about careers in the sciences and create a cleaner, healthier world.

“CAF is helping Johnson Matthey inspire the next generation of diverse scientists, engineers and technologists through Science and Me. We learned from CAF’s research that there are common issues across geographical borders, but each country has their own unique problems to overcome.”
Anna Newsum, Community Investment Officer, Johnson Matthey
 

Convening pharmaceutical donors for a rapid response to a crisis✖

Woman in care home

Pharmaceutical and healthcare companies came together to deliver timely, much-needed support for charitable patient organisations to recover from the effects of the pandemic. With the support of The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), AstraZeneca convened six major companies to participate in the fund which was managed and administered by CAF.

“We are really proud to have been able to work together as a sector with the support and expertise of CAF to respond to the crisis facing patient organisations on the front line during the Covid-19 pandemic. The fund has delivered significant impact to the organisations supported as well as provided us with great learnings for future collaboration as a sector.” 
Paul Naish, Director UK Policy, AstraZeneca
 
 
Untitled design (8)

Looking for a grantmaking partner?

Let us help boost your impact

If you’re a funder looking for support in managing a grant programme, CAF is here to help.

Contact the team