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It's bit risky telling a grant maker what you think of them and we just don't thank each other enough anyway, so we created our annual grant makers survey to let charities have their say. This year we have our votes for the UK's Best Grant Maker overall, the People's Choice for the best team and a new Hall of Fame where you had the chance to thank individuals going above and beyond what anyone might reasonably expect of them. On behalf of all of us, thank you.
Thank you also to those who commented on our work, each of you made my day when I read your comment - and I couldn't resist including this one.
I think YOU should be given an award for providing such a valuable resource for a small charity such as ours. You are a VITAL addition to the charity sector and should be recognised as such.
And the good news is that, as grant makers you can! Scroll to the bottom and sign up to at least some of our Grant Making Standards, which are based on what your grantees told us. If you did that, I'd be really, really happy, your grantees would be happy that you listened and acted to help them and you might win next year, so you'd be happy too.
We invited respondents, for each grant maker they had applied to, to rate how useful they found their grant information and the grant application process from 1 (awful) to 10 (brilliant). The overall scores for grant makers fell compared to last year, an indication that satisfaction with the service they collectively provide has fallen. The top grant makers are listed in order of rating below.
The overall winner was the Garfield Weston Foundation, who also won in 2025.
The number of ratings for each varied from 20 to 151; the average was 55 ratings per grant maker. The scores are assessed using weighted averages of the ratings each received. We included 49 grant makers. We did our best to include those whom many charities apply to (not necessarily the biggest grant makers) and/or who were previously highly rated. Anyone who wishes to nominate any others is welcome to do so and we'll consider adding them - ian@charityexcellence.co.uk.
The UK's Best Grant Makers as Voted by Charities
Highly Rated Grant Makers
There are two or three grant makers I’d thank for their brilliant guidance..
We asked respondents to ignore whether their applications were successful or not, and to nominate up to 2 grant makers for the Peoples' Choice Award for how helpful, friendly and supportive they were.
This year Garfield Weston, pipped Lloyds Bank Foundation (last year's winners), to come out top. However, I do need to say that no less that 5 members of Lloyds Bank Foundation team were nominate for the Hall of Fame, two of them by multiple people. Here are our top rated grant makers 2026 in order of the number of votes they received.
Ella Sips – Lloyds Bank Foundation. "Ella is fabulous. She goes above and beyond...."
There isn't enough charitable funding and there isn't going to be but there are a range of steps that grant makers could take, either individually or collectively that could make a significant difference. Below is what charities told us in 2025 they most wanted.
We need more unrestricted core funding opportunities!
| Action | Average |
| More core funding | 9.2 |
| More multi year funding | 9.1 |
| More funders providing feedback on submitted applications | 8.7 |
| Sector standards to provide consistent, simple, clear application information | 8.5 |
| More funders willing to discuss applications | 8.4 |
| Shorter wait times between applications to a funder | 8.2 |
| Limit information required to minimum necessary | 8.1 |
| Funders more open in publishing grant making data | 8.0 |
| Greater willingness to innovate and take risks | 7.7 |
| Focus more on quality of proposals, less on existing relationships. | 7.4 |
| More funding for small infrastructure (support) charities | 7.3 |
| Able to submit multiple applications to a funder | 7.1 |
| Eligibility more open to other non profits - eg CICs, community groups | 6.2 |
We still need to see a shift towards longer term and unrestricted funding. This is possible if funders invest in their pre-application process to ensure effective governance is in place.
Why it Matters
Presenting key information simply and clearly is always good practice but essential in grant making. Many infrastructure charities like ours and charities searching for grants are very small and hard pressed. Moreover, many of those searching may have little if any fundraising experience, English may be a 2nd language, or they may have low educational attainment, or learning difficulties or face accessibility challenges.
....funders that pay out after your have finished the project - do they think we have money in the bank to fund ourselves?
The Impact
The big charities with full-time professional fundraisers often know this information and not making it easily accessible significantly tilts the playing field against small and marginalised charities. Having key information clearly and simply presented in a standard way by all grant makers would help to counter this and would make everyone's life easier.
Final point is the length of time funders take to make a decision, I have one pending for 12 months, our beneficiaries can't wait 12 months for support 🙁 Apologies for the moan - it's been a tough few months and we do work with some wonderful funders.
How to Make Your Grant Making Fair for Everyone.
I wish we had some more positive examples to share with you.
Make your guidance succinct, simple, clear and easy to find.
Site Navigation - ensure your website is accessible and the navigation is clear and simple.
Bid writers need more opportunity to share the barriers funders create to charitable services. E.g. changing critieria to follow trends, eccentric forms and refusal to give feedback.
Language - ensure your text content is succinct, uses clear, plain simple English and avoids jargon.
Whilst I accept that due diligence and scrutiny of applicants is important, I don’t think larger funders appreciate the effect of time-consuming processes on very small charities e.g.?setting up accounts on complex platforms
Grant Information. Here's what really helps when providing grant detail.
Please could you start a campaign to persuade all funders of the importance of core funding - we'd all sign up to that!
Going the Extra Mile. You'll be really popular if you are able to:
As a snall charity, I feel overwhelmed in writing bids then waiting for a long time for results
A registered charity ourselves, the CEF works for any non profit, not just charities.
Plus, 60+ policies, 8 online health checks and the huge resource base.
Find Funding, Free Help & Resources - Everything Is Free.
