It is estimated that there are currently around 12,000 grant-making trusts and foundations in the UK, with a large proportion of these established over the past 20 years.
The number of grant-makers and the size of their giving is still continuing to rise. Recent research puts the total grant expenditure by UK trusts and foundations at £6.4bn a year, with £3.7bn coming from the top 300 foundations alone.
The landscape is always changing too, responding to global events and reflecting the interests of philanthropists. This fundraising sector is full of opportunity for fundraisers, who need to understand this constantly growing and changing market.
This is where Factary’s New Trust Update is a great help.
Our publication provides a detailed summary of all the new grant-making organisations which are registered with the Charity Commission every month. It also provides an update on those registered three years previously, with accurate information on their interests, activities, policies and grant-making.
- Nearly one in three featured grant-makers grows to have an expenditure of £100,000 or more within the first couple of years of operation
- One in five featured grant-makers is set up by a High-Net-Worth philanthropist
- Over one in ten featured grant-makers that report on grants has a demonstrated capacity to award grants of £500,000 or more, and 80% can make grants of £10,000 or more
As well as information on new trusts month by month, our extensive archive database holds up-to-date records on over 3,500 active grant-makers, two thirds of which do not appear on other leading directories. Using Factary’s online, searchable archive of past editions of the New Trust Update means you won’t miss out on established grant-makers currently operating in the UK.
New Trust Update: features
Monthly Publication
Subscribers to Factary’s the New Trust Update receive a monthly report of all relevant grant-making trusts newly registered at the Charity Commission. On average 20 new grant-makers are featured in each issue; circulation is limited to 100 subscribers to ensure exclusivity.
Every issue features in-depth research on each trust including:
- full information on charitable interests and activities
- biographic details of trustees, and
- notes from interviews conducted with the settlors.
It also includes detailed profiles of those funders established three years previously, with up-to-date information on their activities, policies and grant-making.
All the information we include builds a picture of newly registered trusts and allows subscribers to formulate approach strategies as the trusts become more established.
In short, the New Trust Update allows you to be aware of any relevant grant-makers in the weeks following their registration and find accurate information on funders before they appear in other directories.
Online Archive
Factary launched the New Trust Update in 1993. Since then, we have published over 350 issues – since 2005 alone we have featured over 4,500 grant-making trusts and foundations.
In 2015 we decided to put this extensive back catalogue to good use, so we launched the online New Trust Update archive. In 2025 we launched a new and improved version of the database. Key features of the database are:
- Accurate and up-to-date data – all funders are reviewed to accurately reflect who, what and where the trusts direct their support.
- Detailed Activities & Geographic classification system – 28 philanthropic activity types and geographic classifications down to the county or international region level allow for targeted searches.
- Financial size and capacity – latest financial information and grant capacity information.
- Regularly updates from the Charity Commission – Contact details, Trustees and financial information for each trust is regularly updated.
- Grant History – comprehensive, searchable grant histories for trusts and foundations
- Additional Flags – indicators for corporate foundations, those linked to HNW philanthropists and those that accept unsolicited applications
The archive provides an intuitive search facility that allows you to get results fast, using accurate and updated information to quickly build a targeted pool of prospects. You can search on any combination of criteria to find relevant trusts and foundations that suit your charitable interests and funding requirements.
Exclusively available to New Trust Update subscribers, the archive further improves the return on investment for subscribers, as a way of finding out about new and established philanthropists.
Why subscribe?
The New Trust Update service from Factary is an essential fundraising tool for the Rainbow Centre. We are now in our 5th year of subscribing to the service and I would recommend it to any organisation which seeks to raise funds from grant making trusts.
Deborah Riley, Trust & Finance Officer, The Rainbow Centre, Bristol
Our subscribers tell us that the monthly New Trust Update is incredibly useful, providing all the in-depth information required about newly registered trusts in one place.
Subscribers have also commented that the level of detail included in the monthly issue is “excellent” and that the reports produce a lot of leads, bringing in new funding that more than pays for the outlay on the subscription.
Subscribers also say that the New Trust Update saves subscribers hours of time spent searching or making phone calls to source information on new potential grant-makers. One subscriber told us, “I think the comments for each profile are brilliant and really insightful, they really help to create a picture of the donor.”
One of our established subscribers described the online archive as a “great new tool in prospecting.”
If you’d like to find out how the New Trust Update could help you, please email Factary’s Research Director, Will Whitefield, or call him direct on 0117 916 6744.