Over the 17 years since our first grant round in 2008/9, we have now made grants of around £4 million to nearly 100 different charities. Over this period, we have:
- Encouraged grantee charities to focus on evaluation and have funded many to create evaluation approaches.
- Encouraged charities to try out new approaches and new projects, many of which are now proven programmes being funded by other grant providers.
- Funded a wide range of programmes supporting young people in London, dealing with areas including employability, mental health, knife crime, numeracy and literacy skills and refugee support.
- Provided rapid and unrestricted funding to several charities at the start of the COVID pandemic allowing them to make rapid changes to how they delivered services and to plan with some degree of certainty.
Our funds are now approaching a level which will allow us to complete our current relationships with grantee charities, but which would not allow us to embark on many more new relationships. Accordingly, we have decided to change our approach and to close our open application process. We will not be accepting any more unsolicited applications.
Our last grant round closed on 31 August 2025 and all payments of grants have now been made.
Since our foundation the Progress Foundation has focused on giving grants to:
- Organisations working with young people, normally in the age range 14 – 21, though we will also look at projects helping younger children or young people up to age 25
- Organisations which help young people to become fully involved with society, particularly through education, assistance with finding work or involvement with social enterprise
- Organisations working primarily within Greater London.
Charity number 1123219