For the past two years we have been working hard to develop and improve our New Trust Update Archive Database to fully make use of the ever-accumulating data we hold on newly-created UK grant-makers. The database contains information on nearly 4,000 active trusts that have been featured in our monthly New Trust Update reports since 2005, the majority of which do not appear on any other leading directory.
What’s new and what’s improved
In March 2025 we launched the new and improved Archive Database, which is available to New Trust Update subscribers alongside the monthly reports on newly registered trusts. The main changes and improvements from the previous version of the online archive database are:
Accurate and up-to-date data
We have reviewed all the active trusts on the database and gathered accurate classification information on their areas of activity and geographic area of benefit, reflecting who, what and where tend to get the trusts’ support. This is based on their stated interests, activities, accounts, website and grant-making.
Detailed activities classification system
We have expanded the activities classification system from 11 categories to 28, allowing for far more targeted searches.
Granular geographic area of benefit system
The detailed geographic classification system, going down to the regional level in the UK and continental region level internationally, allows you to find funders for causes or projects in specific UK and international regions.
Regular updated data from the Charity Commission
Contact details, trustees and financial information for each trust are regularly updated from the Charity Commission.
Grant history
Where available, we have gathered details of the grants awarded by the trusts and foundations. As well as displaying these grants in the trust’s profile, we have used this information to allow searches on grant capacity as well as direct searches for competitor funders.
Additional flags and classifications
When reviewing each trust, we add flags to indicate whether a trust is a corporate foundation, if they explicitly do not accept unsolicited applications and whether they are a ‘Foundation of Wealth’ – established by a philanthropist whose wealth is estimated to be in excess of £10m.
Constant additions and maintenance
Newly registered trusts are reviewed after three years, with their Activity and Geography classifications updated. New grant data is constantly added, helping to build up a picture of the trusts’ interests and activities over time.
What’s in the database?
As of March 2025, there are 3,498 trusts and foundations on the database. We have analysed the data to gain an insight into noticeable trends or interesting statistics regarding the UK grant-maker landscape.
A full overview is available below, but the key highlights are:
Activity type
We have expanded the range of activity type categories from 11 to 28.
In some cases we have split out existing categories such as Arts, Culture, Sport & Recreation becoming Arts & Culture and Sports & Recreation or Religious Activities becoming Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Other Religions.
We have also created new categories such as Mental Health, Hospices, Higher Education, Research and Armed Forces to reflect the funding priorities of our subscribers.
This gives users the ability to be far more targeted in their searches, and fewer irrelevant trusts being returned.
As we have seen when we have analysed the database before, the most common activity type is General Charitable Purposes.
Many trusts are registered with General Charitable Purposes when they are first established meaning, in theory, they are willing to consider any type of charitable activity. However, as part of our review process we look at the grant-makers’ actual activities and interests, including their grant-making patterns, so over time we are able to classify these trusts more accurately.
After General Charitable Purposes, the best supported areas of philanthropic activity based on the number of grant-makers are Welfare (broadly helping those who are disadvantaged), Education & Training and Health.
Geography
Overall, there are 2,941 trusts that state they will support organisations and causes across the UK, and 2,101 that will support work overseas. 769 trusts report or show a regional preference within the UK. Our granular geographic area of benefit classification system allows users to find local funders for their projects across the UK or in specific regions around the world.
Income
The largest proportion of grant-makers in the UK remain small, with an income of under £25,000. However, over one in three of the grant-makers registered in England and Wales, and featured in the New Trust Update archive database, end up having an income of over £100,000, and one in ten have an income of over £1m. Past research has shown that many of these reach this level of income and expenditure within the first few years of operation.
Grants
Where available, we have gathered recent grant-making histories for the funders in the Archive database. This allows us to see a funder’s grant capacity (largest grants awarded) as well as calculate an average grant amount.
This shows that overall 80 per cent (over 1,000) that report on grants have a demonstrated capacity to give grants of £10,000 or more and over a third have the capacity to make six-figure grants.
However, when we look at the average grant amount for each funder, we see that half of them are most likely to award small grants of under £10,000. This is in keeping with the total income figures above, and backing up the fact that the majority of grant-makers in the UK are small, with only a minority growing to be able to offer large grants.
We will be analysing the data contained in the Archive Database in more detail in the coming months and sharing further trends and insights from the UK grant-making sector.
If you would like to learn more about Factary’s New Trust Update service and get an online demonstration of our new and improved Archive Database please contact Will Whitefield at will@factary.com.
Factary’s New Trust Update (NTU) archive database currently has 3,900 trusts and foundations in it as of February 2022. These are all the grant-makers that have been featured in NTU since 2005.
To add value to the database, which is accessible online exclusively to NTU subscribers, we update the records with the latest financial information available from the Charity Commission. We also update the classification information on which trusts have been removed from the Charity Commission register and which are financially inactive. This information allows subscribers to quickly and easily see how large the various trusts are, and therefore which ones are likely to be able to make the largest grants. The database also includes classification information on the potential areas of interest of the grant-makers.
Analysing this data, we can provide a useful overview of the grant-makers in the database and provide some interesting insights into the UK trust and foundation market. We have produced a short report detailing this analysis which can be downloaded here. The highlights are:
The database contains details of over 2,500 active grant-makers, giving away over £1.7bn a year
Over 1 in 3 active funders on the database had a total expenditure in excess of £100,000 in the last financial year
Nearly 1 in 4 newly registered grant-makers is founded by a philanthropist with an estimated wealth in excess of £10m
1 in 4 featured grant-makers has an expenditure in excess of £100,000 in its first year of operation
In 2021 there were 228 new grant-makers featured in NTU. 43 per cent of them had general charitable objects, but the next most commonly supported areas were Poverty & Welfare, Education & Training and Health. 2021 saw 31 new Foundations of Wealth grant-makers founded by wealthy philanthropists, with a combined estimated wealth of over £11.7bn. There were also 36 corporate foundations featured in NTU in 2021.
As is shown in the report, over a quarter of newly-registered grant-makers go on to have an expenditure in excess of £100,000 in their first year of operation. This makes NTU a useful tool to find out about these grant-makers as soon as they are registered, and gives subscribers a head start in building relationships with new philanthropists.
You can see further analysis on the grant-makers featured in New Trust Update and that make up the online archive database by downloading a copy of the report.
If you would like to learn more about Factary’s New Trust Update then please contact Will Whitefield: will@factary.com.
To all our colleagues in prospect research and fundraising, we understand what a worrying and challenging time this is right now – not just for our organisations but for us personally. Here at Factary, just like everywhere else, we have had to come to terms with major changes to the way we live and work whilst we focus on ensuring we and those close to us remain safe and well. Whilst people’s attention has rightly been focused on issues closer to home, we also want our organisations to be able to continue to achieve their objectives, but Covid-19 has already and will continue to have a negative impact on organisations’ ability to deliver their services, with the impact on fundraising a specific concern for many[1]. There are so many questions that we don’t know the answer to yet; what will be the long-term impact on income levels for charities and non-profits? How can you engage with donors and supporters with social restrictions in place? Will donors have the capacity to support you at the same level in the future? Will their priorities be the same? How should we respond to the situation in the short term and how can we plan for the long term?
We do not pretend to know the answers to these questions, and in many ways, it is still too early to know for certain. That there will be long-term implications for the economy, and therefore people’s household wealth, is not in doubt[2], but we do not know how severe this impact will be or how donors will respond over time. For example, one article we have seen stated that the world’s richest have already lost $200bn[3] whilst another other stated that their wealth has grown by $308bn[4]. At the same time, we are seeing some phenomenal responses from philanthropists around the world, both at the international and local level[5], however this is involving a re-alignment of funding priorities for some philanthropists[6].
Luckily there are some brilliant, clever, helpful people out there who are offering advice, insight and support to the sector during this difficult time. These are some of the people who may be able to help you find the help and answers you might be looking for right now and as we start to move forward with our recovery:
Institute of Fundraising – Lots of great blogs providing information and advice for various aspects of fundraising during this time.
UK Fundraising – A wealth of useful articles and blogs from Howard Lake and others containing advice for fundraisers. Particularly useful is this one with five actions fundraising teams should be considering taking now.
Alliance Magazine – articles giving a global perspective on the philanthropy response to Covid-19.
Helen Brown Group – The ever-amazing Helen Brown and her blogs on things from a US perspective.
NFP Synergy – research and resources on charities and Covid-19.
This list is far from exhaustive, but we’ve found some really useful thoughts and advice on some of these pages and we hope that they may help you think about how to respond to Covid-19 both in the short term and in the longer term.
Right now, the main priority is to ensure that we, our friends, family and colleagues are safe, and we do all we can to support our incredible NHS and key workers. But when we are able to start looking to the future and working out the best way forward, we will be here for you. Whether that is just for a friendly chat or some advice, or to talk about ways we can support you to build your prospect pool for the future, we will be here working with you.
Stay safe, and we look forward to talking to you and working with you in the near future.
We have recently updated the financial information for the 3,480 trusts and foundations in our New Trust Update archive database with the most recent data from the Charity Commission. We have also updated the classification information on which trusts have been removed from the Charity Commission register and which are financially inactive. This information allows subscribers to quickly and easily see how large the various trusts are, and therefore which ones are likely to be able to make the largest grants. It also allows for those that are no longer in existence to be excluded from search results.
Based on the data from this recent update, we can see that there are 2,438 trusts and foundations on the database that are active, 326 that are newly registered and haven’t submitted their first set of annual accounts yet, and the remaining 696 that have been removed from the register or do not appear to be financially active.
Breakdown of trusts on the NTU archive by activity status
When we look at the 2,438 trusts that we have financial data for, we can see that around 1 in 3 (34%) had a total charitable expenditure in excess of £100,000 in the last financial year, an increase of 4% from 2019. The largest proportion had a total expenditure of less than £25,000 (39%), with 27% having a total expenditure of between £25,000 and £100,000. Also of note is that 192 trusts for which we have financial data have a reported charitable expenditure in excess of £1m.
Bar graph showing the breakdown of trusts and foundation in the NTU archive, by total expenditure
When we marry this financial data with the areas of activity supported by the trusts, we can see that all philanthropic areas have a significant number of trusts that have the potential to award sizeable grants. This is particularly the case in the areas of poverty & welfare, education and health, and those listed with general charitable objects.
Bar graph showing expenditure by activity type of trusts and foundations on NTU archive
Another interesting area of analysis is when we look at those trusts that are reporting their first set of annual accounts. When we look at the 196 trusts that have submitted their first set of accounts in the last year, the majority (59%) record a small total expenditure of less than £25,000 and 20% report a total expenditure of between £25,000 and £100,000. However what is particularly encouraging, especially for subscribers to New Trust Update, is that around 1 in 5 of these trusts (21%) report a total expenditure in excess of £100,000, with 10 reporting an expenditure in excess of £1m.
Breakdown of expenditure by newly registered grantmaking trusts
Combining this latest analysis with past research show that:
A summary of some facts and figures abouts the NTU archive
A subscription to Factary’s New Trust Update is an invaluable resource for non-profits seeking to raise income from trusts and foundations. As a subscriber, you get the opportunity to start building relationships with philanthropic vehicles, many of which are shown to be set up by wealthy philanthropists and grant large amounts within their first year of operation, before anyone else. You also get draw on the vast pool of large and varied grant-makers held in the searchable archive database, not widely known to other non-profits.
If you would like to find out more about New Trust Update please contact Will Whitefield or call 0117 9166740.
In 2019 Factary’s New Trust Update contained profiles of 222 newly-registered grant-making trusts and foundations. Our review of the year found that 51 of these were founded by individuals with an estimated wealth of at least £10m, which equates to nearly 1 out of every 4 trusts featured in our reports. The combined wealth of these philanthropists is just under £26bn and includes a number of global philanthropists who have chosen to set up a foundation in the UK.
Our infographic report, available to view here, includes a range of useful analysis and statistics including the philanthropic areas of interest of the trusts and foundations featured throughout the year, the source of funds of the High Net Worth Individuals creating their own foundations and their geographical distribution. It also includes mini profiles on a handful of the most interesting and potentially major foundations and their settlors.
Whilst there are on average around 100 new organisations registered with the Charity Commission each month that state they make grants to other organisations, in practice the vast majority of these are not what would be considered grant-making trusts or foundations. We scrutinise and carefully select the organisations that are featured in New Trust Update, making it a vital resource for finding out about new sources of funding in the foundations market, particularly from High Net Worth families and corporates. With details on around 20 new grant-makers each month, including notes on the professional and philanthropic interests of the settlors and interview notes on the aims and objectives of the trusts and foundations, New Trust Update gives fundraisers a head-start on building relationships with these new philanthropic vehicles before they appear on any other directories.
Details of all past trusts and foundations featured in New Trust Update dating back to 2005 can be found on the online NTU Archive. This online archive database currently has over 3,400 trusts and foundations and provides a quick and intuitive search facility that allows you to get results fast. You can search by charitable area of interests, keywords, expenditure or trustee name to find relevant trusts and foundations that suit your charitable interests.
Subscriber numbers for New Trust Update are limited to maintain exclusivity of the information contained. If you would like to find out more, or to receive a downloadable version of the report, then please contact Will Whitefield or call us on 0117 9166740.
In early 2017 Factary took the bold step to revolutionise the way we undertake Wealth Screenings. We launched our new Screening product in December 2017 and now, 16 months later, we have been able to reflect on the highs and lows of this process, and analyse the pros and cons of our new system. We thought we’d share our experiences here as they may prove useful to those who may be thinking of undertaking a Screening now or in the future.
Why did we change our approach to Screening?
To carry out our Screenings we used to hold a dataset of wealthy and philanthropic individuals (including data such as name, address, wealth analysis and data on professional / philanthropic interests for each individual). In 2017, in preparation for GDPR, like most other organisations we undertook full Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) on all of our products and services that made use of personal data. The PIA for Screening identified that, as the individuals held on our database were not aware that we were processing their data, and as some of the data would be deemed ‘intrusive’ (e.g. wealth analysis), our Screening posed clear risks to the individuals on the dataset (and, also, to us as an organisation and to our clients).
Ultimately, the PIA showed we had three choices: contact the individuals to ask for consent; attempt to justify the use of data under legitimate interests (and provide privacy notices to all the individuals on th/e dataset), or; stop Screening using this dataset entirely. We did not feel the first two options fully mitigated the risks involved to individuals, to Factary or to our clients, so (with the knowledge of the ICO) we decided to delete our dataset of wealthy and philanthropic individuals and start from scratch with a new Screening method.
Our new method
Full details on our new approach can be obtained by contacting us directly or reading more on Factary Screenings elsewhere on our website, but essentially we now make use of a number of data points to analyse a client dataset and identify those individuals likely to be major gift prospects. These data points include socio and geo-demographic data pertaining to 1.3m UK postcodes, bespoke and anonymised in-house wealth data points compiled from past Factary research, philanthropy data (to identify potential links to grant-makers & charities), and professional / business data (to identify links to top companies). None of this data is classified as personal data. We also make use of some datasets which hold names only, such as data from Factary Phi and some data from published Rich Lists. Alongside this, we make use of client data denoting connection or affinity (such as donation history, membership details, event attendance, ongoing relationships and much more) as our Screening approach doesn’t just focus on identifying the wealthiest amongst a support base but also those prospects likely to be warm to the cause or organisation.
So, does our new approach work?
We admit that this whole process was a bit of a gamble – it was a bit of a scary leap into the unknown and we had no real idea as to whether or not it would work (and we are very thankful to the small number of clients who helped us run pilot Screenings on their data in 2017 to allow us to review the outputs and efficacy of the new approach).
Thankfully, we are happy to report that the new process not only works, but is proving to be even more effective than our old approach. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, we are no longer relying on a static database of well-known individuals. We are now drawing from a variety of in-house datasets which has massively broadened the potential pool from which we can identify prospects and has naturally resulted in an increase in identified major donor potential.
Example output from Factary’s new Screening report (showing results by ‘Capacity’)
Secondly, due to the new focus on demographic and occupational analysis we are able to identify wealthy individuals that would have previously been difficult to identify. This expanded focus, which is not reliant on prospects who are likely to be identified from static sources such as Companies House, has shown that we also now have a higher chance of being able to identify the very wealthiest prospects from professional sectors that were hugely underrepresented in our old approach (e.g. prospects with affiliations to investment firms or hedge funds).
Ultimately, this new approach to identifying prospects is more rounded and multi-layered which, when coupled with our bespoke analysis of giving history and affinity data, identifies a much wider range of wealthy and philanthropic individuals who can be prioritised not only by capacity to give but also by warmth/motivation towards the organisation or cause.
Example output from Factary’s new Screening report (showing potential philanthropy matches against Factary Phi)
The cons
Of course, as with any process, it’s not fool proof. The new approach has its cons, too. For example, as one of the main drivers of our Screening is postcode data we are very reliant on clean address information in order to achieve successful results. Clients with out of date address data are unlikely to obtain the same results as those with clean data. That said, under GDPR we have found that many organisations have worked hard to ensure the data they hold is clean and accurate, so this is less of an issue than it might have been a few years ago.
Another slight downside is that not all individuals indicated as wealthy at the initial Screening stage can subsequently be identified from manual research in the public domain at the reporting stage, and for some we cannot confirm wealth. This means that a small percentage (around 17%) of identified prospects can ultimately not be included in the final reports. This does, however, highlight that our Screening involves a very careful process whereby an individual researcher reviews the results to ensure only relevant and verified major gift level prospects are included in the eventual pool (from a GDPR perspective this is important due to the process of justifying the type of individual that might ‘reasonably expect’ to be researched).
So, what are the typical results you can expect?
Given the pros and cons listed above, what are the typical results you can expect from the new Screening process?
The overall breakdown of results (by wealth band) so far is shown below. This includes the percentage of prospects we have researched and verified at various wealth levels, after removing those prospects who cannot be identified in the public domain or who are not relevant for a major donor programme.
As can be seen, the results show a spread across levels of estimated wealth, with £1m-£5m being the most predominant (as expected) and then a more or less equal split between those with wealth of £5m-£10m, and those HNWIs at £10m+. As can be seen, our new approach also includes prospects with wealth of £500k-£1m (as, according to research, these prospects would have an annual gift capacity in the region of £5k-£10k, which easily puts them into a major giving category for the majority of our clients).
Unfortunately, it is difficult to use the data we have so far to provide an estimated breakdown of likely major donor potential (by wealth category) that can be identified from a ‘typical’ dataset as, predictably, the results do depend on the type of organisation we are working with, and the quality of the data we receive. For example, for one independent school we identified that 41% of the database had major donor potential (wealth >£1m), but as these types of datasets are likely to have an unusually high percentage of wealthy individuals it is not indicative of potential results more broadly.
However, results from numerous other charities (working in health, international development, arts etc.) so far show that the identification rate for >£1m prospects has been typically 3% – 5%. This is heartening as research undertaken in 2017 by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) showed that approximately 3% of UK households are millionaires. This indicates that our results mirror the wealth demographic in the UK but are also reflective of the fact that our clients typically segment their datasets to send us those prospects who are most likely to ‘reasonably expect’ to be researched (so their segmentations are likely to include a higher percentage of wealthy and philanthropic individuals than their wider datasets as a whole, meaning we may often identify >3% with major gift potential). Alongside this, because we also identify a relatively robust number of prospects at £500k – £1m, the eventual pool of potential prospects is typically quite broad for all of our clients.
These typical results also represent an increase in identified major gift potential when compared to our previous Screening results, which would, on average, identify 2.88% of a donor dataset (as was outlined in our ‘Guide to a Compliant Wealth Screening’ which can be accessed here).
TL;DR? It does work!
Ultimately, what this data has shown us is that our new process does actually work in identifying a broad range of potential major donor prospects for our clients, which is something of a relief for us! To have taken the bold move to stop using our in-house dataset was a daunting prospect for us, but to have found that not only could we continue to provide clients with a GDPR-compliant service to identify major donor prospects, but that it was actually even more effective than our old system has been very exciting. We are not resting on our laurels though – we are constantly reviewing and revising our processes to tighten up results so, hopefully, our Screenings will continue to improve in the coming months. Do please get in touch if you’d like to talk about the average results from your particular sector so you can see what the ROI from a Screening might be when translated into major gift potential for your organisation.
The GDPR bit…
…because what blog post about Screening would be complete without a GDPR section?
There are still a number of organisations in the sector who still ask if wealth screening is legal. The short answer is yes, it is. The longer answer is yes…as long as your organisation has met a number of requirements, which include:
If relying on legitimate interest (as, for example, 97% of higher education institutions are reported to be doing), the ICO outline that there are three elements to review, which are:
1. Identify a legitimate interest – what are the purposes for processing the data?
Your organisation will need to be able to identify and demonstrate the reasons or purpose of undertaking a Screening. For example, you may outline that Screenings are used to identify those individuals from amongst a wider existing supporter base who may be able to offer financial support at a significantly higher level and to prioritise those who should be approached for a major giving programme
It may also help to review the results of this academic study which provides evidence to support the use of research as an integral process in fundraising. For example, the paper shows that:
95% of fundraisers state that research enables them to identify relevant prospects
100% state that research is necessary for understanding prospects’ capacity to give
100% state prospect research enables their organisations to prioritise the prospect pool
Of course, Screening also ensures that individuals who are not able to support you at a significant level do not receive irrelevant approaches from your organisation, which is another clear purpose of doing it. As evidence for this, the study cited above shows that 82% of fundraisers agree that research processes minimise the chance that inappropriate approaches are made to potential donors.
2. Show that the processing is necessary to achieve the purposes identified
The ICO outline that data processing must be necessary and further state that if you can reasonably achieve the same results in a way that does not use personal data, then legitimate interests will not apply. Whilst our Screening does not use personal data we would still be processing the personal data held by your organisation, so this aspect of GDPR still needs to be analysed before a Screening is undertaken.
The necessity of Screening can be evidenced by understanding how important major gift fundraising is to the continued success and operation of your organisation, including that major donors not only provide financial support but also contribute in other, less tangible ways, such as bringing expertise, skills and their professional or personal networks to provide support and guidance to non-profits (Eberhardt S & Madden M (2017) Major Donor Giving Research Report. London: NPC).
Screening is typically the first step in major gift fundraising as it enables you to identify relevant prospects for a programme in an efficient, cost-effective and accurate way.
Other methods for identifying relevant major gift prospects were reviewed in the academic study outlined above, including data mining / segmentation (such as analysing a donor or alumni database to identify those who are making abnormally large or out-of-pattern gifts, or from modelling their dataset to identify individuals with similar characteristic to their major donors), or from sending questionnaires to constituents on a database and asking for details on salary / professional info etc. Results from the study (see page 22 onwards) showed that the vast majority of fundraisers felt that, even if organisations undertake other methods then prospect research processes would still be required in order to, for example, identify sufficient numbers of major gift prospects.
Using the type of evidence and arguments outlined above, you can prove that Screening is necessary and that the results from Screenings cannot be achieved by using other methods.
3. Balance the processing against the individual’s interests, rights and freedoms
The ICO state that you must balance your need to undertake processes such as Screening against individuals’ interests. If the individuals would not reasonably expect the processing, or if it would cause unjustified harm, their interests are likely to override your legitimate interests.
It is important, therefore, to be able to explain / evidence that activities such as Screening do not have a disproportionate impact on individuals. Our paper on Legitimate Interest and Prospect Research contains an overview of the type of processes to go through, the questions to ask and the evidence that can ultimately be gathered in order to do this (see page 15 onwards).
Additionally, we recently conducted a study into privacy notices which can be accessed via our blog. This provided very clear evidence that, when individuals are contacted to be informed that organisations are undertaking Screening (by receiving a privacy notice), very (very) few of them react negatively. For example, as the blog shows, only 0.0000411% of (almost 2.5m) individuals chose to opt out of their data being used in prospect research when given the opportunity. This, as we outline in the blog, “…provides an evidence base that can be used to argue that the balancing exercise carried out by non-profit organisations to review individuals’ interests, rights and freedoms was fairly judged because, if it hadn’t been, then presumably the number of individuals complaining about or opting out of prospect research would be significantly higher”.
4. Transparency:
One of the 7 principles of the GDPR is ‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’. Some of the processes outlined above will ensure you are meeting the standards of lawfulness and fairness required for this principle, but adhering to ‘transparency’ is vital – particularly when it comes to Screening as a lack of transparency formed the basis of the ICO fines to charities for Screening in 2016.
Transparency is achieved through the provision of a clear and concise privacy notice. Plenty has been written about how to write a good privacy notice and what to include but there are now some great examples of privacy notices which include Screening in their scope (see here and here).
Incidentally, this principle formed the basis of Factary’s decision to delete our database of wealthy individuals that we used to hold for Screening as our PIA showed that we did not allow individuals to exercise their rights (as they had not received a privacy notice from us outlining the reasons for which we used their personal data).
The four elements described above that need to be reviewed/worked through in order to undertake a compliant Screening may feel slightly onerous, but they are imperative if your organisation wants to move forward with any type of data processing for fundraising.
Further discussion
If you’d like to chat about Screenings, or how to approach undertaking a DPIA or analysing the GDPR requirements around Screening then please do get in touch.
As part of an MA in Philanthropic Studies (undertaken at the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent) I completed a study which aimed to identify the role that prospect research plays in major donor fundraising. The study involved a survey, undertaken in 2018, of major donor fundraisers and prospect researchers working in higher education institutions in the UK. I’m pleased to say that the results of the study are now available to download.
As a quick summary the results of the study cover a number of areas, such as:
The activities commonly undertaken by prospect researchers
The purposes or reasons for which fundraisers use prospect research
How necessary fundraisers feel research is to their work
The ways in which prospect research contributes to fundraising
Prospect research metrics (i.e. what data is being gathered on the output or impact of prospect research)
In particular, the results can be used by non-profit organisations when analysing the use of personal data for prospect research purposes under the GDPR. Until now, the non-profit sector did not have a reliable evidence base which outlined the purpose or necessity of prospect research, nor which identified if the purposes of prospect research could reasonably be achieved by other methods (which do not use personal data) – all important areas to analyse, particularly for those organisations relying on their Legitimate Interests to process personal data for prospect research. In practical terms, the data and evidence presented in the paper can now be used by any non-profit organisation when completing, for example, a Legitimate Interest Assessment or a Data Privacy Impact Assessment.
Beyond GDPR, the paper highlights that, on the whole, the prospect research community is not particularly good at gathering evidence which illustrates the impact (or the ROI) of prospect research. That said, it does also show that the vast majority of major donor fundraisers are overwhelmingly positive about the ways in which prospect research supports them in their work.
If you think it might be useful for you or your organisation, please do download the paper and (when sufficiently caffeinated) have a read. I’d be more than happy to answer any questions or chat about the data/paper in more detail if you’d like to get in touch.
Factary’s New Trust Update was first launched in 1993. It was the first service of its kind, allowing subscribers to become aware of any relevant grant-makers in the weeks following their registration, before they get swamped by applications or listed on any other directory.
Since then we have published over 285 issues – and sought to constantly improve the service, providing even more value for our non-profit subscribers. In 2015 we launched our new online Archive database, utilising our extensive back catalogue by making all past issues since 2005 available online and all featured trusts searchable by charitable area of interests, keywords or trustee name. As of February 2019, the number of trusts on the database is over 3,200 and growing every month.
Now, we have made yet another development that radically improves the functionality and utility of this already valuable resource. Using data from the Charity Commission, we have been able to add the latest total charitable expenditure figures to all trusts on the Archive. This means the data is no longer just a historical snapshot from the original time of research, but now contains up-to-date financial information allowing subscribers to have a ready indication of the size of each trust and likely grant capacity.
access to the special Foundations of Wealth reports that were produced in 2012, 2013 and 2014
full access to our searchable database of over 3,200 grant-makers where you can filter and search by charitable areas of interest, financial expenditure, keywords and trustee names
As well as adding expenditure figures, we have been able to update the status of all the trusts and foundations on the Archive register. This allows subscribers to see whether a trust is active, recently registered, not financially active (no accounts submitted for the past five years) or whether it has been removed from the Charity Commission register.
Overall we found that only 13% of the entire dataset has been removed from the Charity Commission register, and a further 2% are classified as financially inactive. As you would expect, as time goes on more and more trusts are removed from the register and within 9 years this reaches a rate of around 1 in 5. By 14 years it is up to around 1 in 4 that have been removed from the Charity Commission. What is also interesting is that some trusts and foundations appear to be removed within two years of registration. The reasons for these early removals is not clear, but by having these classifications available in the Archive database, subscribers are able to see which trusts are active and which are not, and exclude them from their search results.
Analysing the new expenditure data shows some very positive statistics, highlighting the enormous value New Trust Update subscribers can gain by having access to this database:
Excluding those that have been removed from the register, over 30% of the trusts and foundations on the database had a total expenditure of over £100,000 in the last financial year.
There are a total of 160 trusts and foundations on the database with a recorded expenditure in excess of £1m in the last financial year.
Over 85% of the trusts and foundations on the database are still registered and financially active.
When we look at the recorded activity types for those with an expenditure of over £100,000, we see that there is a high proportion of those supporting Health, Education and Welfare & Poverty, as well as a substantial number listed with general charitable purposes at the time of registration. All activity types are represented in this high-value dataset, meaning it will be of use to non-profits working in all sectors.
What’s even more interesting, is when we compared our dataset to the trusts and foundations held on the Directory of Social Change’s Trustfunding resource. What we found was that only 20% of the trusts and foundations on our Archive database are listed on Trustfunding – so the New Trust Update Archive holds details of over 2,500 trusts and foundations that are not on the leading directory, including nearly 500 that have a latest expenditure of over £100,000.
This new development makes the New Trust Update Archive database an invaluable resource for non-profits seeking to raise income from trusts and foundations. It contains records on a wealth of trusts and foundations that do not appear on any other major directory and is now searchable by both activity type and expenditure level, making it a brilliant resource for building lists of potential donors.
So as a subscriber to New Trust Update, not only do you get the opportunity to start building relationships with new philanthropic vehicles before anyone else, you also get to draw on the vast pool of grant-makers, not widely known to other non-profits.
If you would like to find out more about New Trust Update please contact Nicola Williams or call 0117 9166740.
For the past few months we have been engaged in a project to understand the reaction of donors, supporters and alumni when they receive a privacy notice from a non-profit organisation or university which is relying on its legitimate interest to process data for prospect research purposes.
We undertook the project because, under GDPR, in order to be able to rely on legitimate interest as a basis to process personal data for prospect research purposes (and therefore not obtain consent), non-profits must ensure they have fulfilled certain criteria – including undertaking a balancing exercise to ensure that the legitimate interests of the organisation do not override individuals’ interests, rights & freedoms and to ensure that the data processing does not have a disproportionate impact on data subjects.
Whilst many non-profits and universities feel they have successfully carried out balancing exercises and provided fair and transparent privacy notices detailing prospect research activities, the decision they have taken to rely on their legitimate interests is not without its risks. The opinion of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in early 2017 was that “millions of people” would “be upset to discover that charities [would] target them for even more money” by undertaking activities such as prospect research. If it is indeed the case that millions of people would feel this way then it could be argued that prospect research activities do have a disproportionate impact on data subjects.
However, so far the ICO have provided no evidence that “millions of people” would be upset to discover that non-profit organisations undertake prospect research. In fact, in a recent ongoing correspondence in relation to a Freedom of Information request, the ICO state they have “no specific evidence” to support their assertion that donors, supporters or alumni would not reasonably expect non-profits to undertake prospect research, much less that people would be upset about it.
That said, the non-profit sector itself cannot currently provide any empirical evidence that millions of people would not feel this way. The lack of evidence to support some aspects of the decision many non-profits have taken to rely on the legitimate interest condition is something that concerns us at Factary and for this reason we decided to try and understand the reaction of donors, supporters and alumni when they are told about prospect research via a privacy notice.
The project
This project aimed to capture data on the reactions of data subjects when they received a privacy notice containing information about prospect research activities. To do this, a questionnaire was sent only to non-profits which:
undertake prospect research activities (such as profiling and screening)
have decided to rely on legitimate interests for prospect research purposes
have included specific information about prospect research activities in their privacy notice
have provided the privacy notice to their constituents (not just made it available on their website)
told recipients how they could opt out of their data being used for prospect research and how they could complain about data being used in this way
Results
To date, 17 non-profits organisations (a mixture of charities and universities) have completed the questionnaire.
In total 2,433,901 privacy notices have been provided by the 17 organisations.
Privacy notices (or links to privacy notices) have been provided using the following methods:
1,174,930 sent by email
947,791 sent by post
307,180 sent by SMS
4,000 provided face to face (by one higher education institution at an alumni event)
Graph comparing the methods by which organisations have provided privacy notices to data subjects.
From the 2.4m privacy notices that were provided by the 17 different organisations, we asked:
How many recipients contacted the non-profit to opt-out of their data being used for prospect research purposes?
How many recipients contacted the non-profit to complain about the use of personal data for prospect research purposes?
The results show:
Overall 0.0000411% of recipients complained about prospect research
Overall 0.00825% of recipients opted out of prospect research
What do these results mean?
As is shown, the number of individuals complaining about prospect research, or requesting to ‘opt out’ of their data being used in prospect research, is infinitesimal.
This data therefore provides an evidence base that can be used to argue that the balancing exercise carried out by non-profit organisations to review individuals’ interests, rights and freedoms was fairly judged because, if it hadn’t been, then presumably the number of individuals complaining about or opting out of prospect research would be significantly higher.
Whilst we do not necessarily feel the results of the project can be used to argue that people ‘reasonably expect’ to be researched, the data can be used to argue that prospect research activities do not appear to have a disproportionate impact on data subjects. The ICO state that
You should avoid using legitimate interests if you are using personal data in ways … you think some people would object [to] if you explained it to them.
This data shows that the rate of objection is negligible which makes the legitimate interests condition an entirely viable option for non-profits.
Of course, one of the limitations of this data is that it is difficult to know how many individuals have actually read the privacy notices that they were sent in various formats (our research shows that, on average, around 30% of individuals who received privacy notices via email clicked to open the email but we have no way of knowing how many people read the copies that were posted to them or that were given to them face to face). However, we do not believe that this invalidates the results. In fact, given the widespread negative publicity afforded to the use of personal data in fundraising by charities and universities over the past few years in the national press, it would be difficult to state that there is a total lack of awareness amongst donors, supporters and alumni of how personal data is used in fundraising. It could be argued that the open rate indicates that, despite negative press reports about wealth screening and research, people trust their chosen charities and universities to use their data responsibly.
Of course, more can be done to ensure donors, supporters and alumni are engaged in matters of data privacy over and above just sending a privacy notice – for example, many organisations are speaking directly with donors about data privacy matters to make sure individuals have a thorough understanding of what happens with their data and to gauge reasonable expectations. That said, each organisation that completed our questionnaire provided a clear privacy notice to data subjects to enable them to exercise their rights (to be informed, to object the processing, to minimise processing, to access their data etc.) and so they have met the standards of transparency required under the legitimate interests condition, regardless of how many recipients found it necessary to read the privacy notice.
What next?
We would like to continue to add to this evidence base if possible so if your organisation is relying on legitimate interests to process data for prospect research and you would like to share your data on privacy notices, please do contact us at the details below. If we do receive more data on this, we’ll update this blog with fresh results.
We also believe there is more work that can to be done to gather wider evidence to support the justification to rely on legitimate interests for prospect research. This includes gathering and disseminating data on the reasonable expectations of supporters (particularly major donors), the purposes of prospect research, how necessary research is to fundraising and the benefits of doing it. There is more to come from us on some of these issues, so keep an eye on the blog – but if you are engaging in any evidence gathering on these matters we’d love to hear from you!
And, last but not least, we’d like to thank the organisations and higher ed institutions that submitted data to us for this project.
If you have any questions about any of the above (or GDPR or research in general) please do get in touch with Nicola Williams, Research Director, at nicolaw@factary.com.
In 2018 Factary’s New Trust Update contained profiles of 224 newly-registered grant-making trusts and foundations. Our review of the year found that 62 of these were founded by individuals with an estimated wealth of at least £10m which equates to more than 1 out of every 4 trusts featured in our reports. This is an increase of 30% from last year. The combined wealth of these philanthropists is in excess of £25bn and includes a number of global philanthropists who have chosen to set up a foundation in the UK.
Our New Trust Update 2018 infographic report includes a range of useful analysis and statistics including the philanthropic areas of interest of the trusts and foundations featured throughout the year, the source of funds of the High Net Worth Individuals creating their own foundations and their geographical distribution. It also includes mini profiles on a handful of the most interesting and potentially major foundations and their settlors.
Whilst there are on average around 100 new organisations registered with the Charity Commission each month that state they make grants to other organisations, in practice the vast majority of these are not what would be considered grant-making trusts or foundations. We scrutinise and carefully select the organisations that are featured in New Trust Update, making it a vital resource for finding out about new sources of funding in the foundations market, particularly from High Net Worth families and corporates. With details on around 20 new grant-makers each month, including notes on the professional and philanthropic interests of the settlors and interview notes on the aims and objectives of the trusts and foundations, New Trust Update gives fundraisers a head-start on building relationships with these new philanthropic vehicles before they appear on any other directories.
Subscriber numbers for New Trust Update are limited to maintain exclusivity of the information contained. If you would like to find out more, or to receive a downloadable version of the report, then please contact Nicola Williams or call us on 0117 9166740.
