Changing Success Rates in UK Charity Grant Funding (2015-2025)

Over the past 5-10 years, UK charities have faced increasing competition for grant funding. Multiple factors, from austerity-era budget cuts to surging demand during COVID-19, have affected both the supply of grants and the volume of applications, altering success rates.

Overview and Recent Trends

In general, grant application success rates have been low and, in many cases, have declined in recent years, meaning charities are finding it harder to secure funding. For instance, even before the pandemic, grant funding was described as "increasingly competitive" due to growing need and shrinking local authority support. Below we explore how success rates have changed since the mid-2010s and how different funder types compare, using proxies like total grants awarded and application numbers when direct success rate data is unavailable.

Success Rates Over Time

Pre-2020

By the late 2010s, many charities were experiencing low odds of grant success. A 2019 survey of fundraisers found an average success rate of roughly 1 in 7 grant applications (~14%). Cold applications to new funders could fare even worse (as low as 1 in 12 success), while well-cultivated repeat funders might reach about 1 in 3. This period followed years of public funding cuts, meaning more charities chasing foundation grants, thus success rates were relatively low going into 2020.

COVID-19 Era (2020-2021)

The pandemic initially boosted grant availability through emergency funds, temporarily improving success odds for some. Many funders relaxed criteria or created COVID-response grants. A survey in 2021 (covering the 2020/21 period) found an average success rate of about 2 in 5 applications (40%) among the charities polled. This was a marked rise, reflecting the influx of emergency grants and the fact that a majority of respondents were larger charities with experienced grant fundraisers (indeed, two-thirds had access to special COVID funding).

However, this spike was not uniform, some programmes saw huge application surges that actually drove success rates down. For example, one UK trust reported that its small grants programme applicationsincreased by over 50% in 2020, causing the success rate to fall from ~65% the previous year to ~50% in that year. In other words, emergency funding helped some charities but also attracted many new applicants, so competition in certain funds intensified.

Post-Pandemic (2022-2025)

As one-off COVID funds wound down, the grant landscape "normalised", and competition resurged amid economic strains (inflation, cost-of-living crisis). Success rates have generally slipped back down.Fundraising experts writing in 2025 noted that success rates "have shifted again and not in a good way" compared to the 2020 peak. A late-2024 trust fundraiser survey reported an overall average success rate around 35.6%, lower than the 40% seen in 2020, suggesting it's tougher again to win grants.

Many charities now consider a 20-30% success rate a realistic benchmark in a tight funding climate (even 25% is seen as a solid result). In fact, numerous charities face far slimmer odds, as illustrated by examples below.

Demand vs. Supply

A key reason for changing success rates is the imbalance between grant demand and supply. In the last 5-10 years, the total amount of grant funding available has not kept pace with the growth in applications:

Surging Applications

When other income sources decline, more charities turn to grants. During the pandemic and subsequent economic hardships, application numbers soared. For example, Paul Hamlyn Foundation's Youth Fund (a core funding programme) received over 400 applications in 2015-16 but could only fund £1.1m of grants, an effective success rate of roughly 6%.

Similarly, some corporate-sponsored grant contests attract overwhelming responses, in 2025, a SPAR retailer community fund saw 11,000 applications for just 40 grants (0.36% success). Such extreme cases underscore how many charities are chasing limited pots, leading to minuscule chances of success for most applicants. Even more moderately sized programmes report strain: the Jules Thorn Trust noted that its small grants scheme's applications remained above pre-COVID levels, and it had to tighten criteria as "the volume of applications… remains above pre-pandemic levels".

Grant Funding Available

On the supply side, different funder categories have trended differently. Government grants to the charity sector have generally fallen in recent years. Notably, the Charity Commission reported that government grant funding to charities dropped from £8.2 billion in 2021 to £7.0 billion in 2022, and the number of charities receiving government grants fell by 24% (from ~35,500 to 27,000) in one year. This indicates fewer opportunities in public grant programmes, pushing more charities towards other funders.

By contrast, foundation and lottery funders tried to step up during COVID: for instance, the top 300 grant-making foundations increased their grant spending by 13% in 2020-21. The National Lottery Community Fund and others also distributed emergency grants widely. These boosts likely improved success rates temporarily in 2020. However, as those special funds receded, charities were again left competing overroughly the same or even reduced grant pools in 2022-2025. In short, supply has not dramatically grown to meet the heightened demand, creating a squeeze that lowers success probabilities.

Funder Responses

Importantly, many funders have responded by changing their processes rather than simply accepting ever-lower success rates. Some trusts/foundations have closed open application rounds or added stages to screen out unlikely bids early. This is meant to save charities from wasting effort when odds are low. For example, one major health grant programme introduced an Expression-of-Interest stage from 2024, explicitly toreduce the number of full applications and improve quality, after seeing a flood of applications in 2020-2023.

Sector analysts note that many trusts are taking steps to manage or reduce demand, from tightening eligibility, to shortening application windows, to pausing new applications, because "more and more demand [is chasing] the same (or less) funding". These measures can prop up the success rate for those who do apply (by deterring others), but they also reflect the challenging new normal of grant-seeking.

Success Rates by Funder Type

Grant success rates vary widely by type of funder and programme, and their trends over time differ. Below are key examples illustrating how different funding sources have fared:

Government Grants

Public sector grant programmes have become harder to win overall. As mentioned, the pool of government grants to charities has shrunk in recent years. Large national competitive funds often reportvery low success rates. For instance, a few years ago the Tampon Tax Fund (a UK government grant programme for charities) was widely understood to fund only a single-digit percentage of applicants (similar to the ~6% success in the PHF example). When government launched emergency funds (e.g. Culture Recovery Fund in 2020), they were oversubscribed despite large budgets.

By 2022-2023, many COVID-era schemes ended, and no significant new public grant sources replaced them, leaving charities to contend with fewer government grant opportunities and thus lower overall chances in this category.

Lottery and Major Public Foundations

National lottery-distributed funding (e.g. National Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts Council England) tends to havemoderate success rates but with some decline or fluctuation. The Heritage Fund, for example, historically approved around 50-60% of applications, its data shows overall grant success hovering in the mid-50s percentile each year from 2013 up to 2021. This relatively stable rate is partly because such programmes often involve detailed vetting or two-stage processes.

Arts funding, on the other hand, is quite competitive: Arts Council England's open project grants funded roughly 32% of applicants in 2023/24 (3,084 awards out of 9,642 applications) and its individual artist grants (Developing Your Creative Practice) had about a 20% success rate in that year. These rates have varied, Arts Council had years post-2018 where certain grant success rates dipped near 10%, until additional funding was allocated to raise them to the teens or low-20% range.

Overall, lottery-funded grants remain oversubscribed (Arts Council noted a nearly 10% rise in demand for project grants in 2023/24), and without proportional budget increases, success percentages have not significantly improved.

Trusts and Foundations

This category shows a big range of success rates and some notable changes over time.Small/medium charitable trusts that accept open applications often face a growing barrage of requests. Some well-known foundations report low single-digit success for unsolicited applications, for example, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (one of the UK's largest trusts) revealed that only~7% of initial Expressions of Interest led to a full proposal, and ultimately ~6% of open requests were funded in 2024. In other words, 94% of would-be applicants via Esmée's website did not secure grants. This reflects deliberate filtering (they invite a subset of proposals) but also howfew can be funded relative to demand.

By contrast, foundations with narrower remits or invite-only models have higher success rates. For instance, The Clothworkers' Foundation (which funds capital projects for certain charities) still funded47% of eligible applications in 2024. However, even Clothworkers noted this was a slight drop from previous years and that "the long-term trend was downwards" due to unpredictable demand.

Sector-wide surveys of trust fundraisers indicate that when charities strategically target likely funders and build relationships, they might achieve around a one-in-three to one-in-four hit rate (25-35%). Indeed, an insights survey in late 2024 found an average 35.5% success rate across trusts fundraising pipelines. That figure is similar to a few years prior, suggesting that (aside from the 2020 spike) well-resourced fundraising teams have maintained roughly stable success by focusing on quality over quantity.

Still, the absolute number of rejections is rising, even those hitting a 30% win rate are typically sending out far more applications now to achieve the same income. And less-established charities without such networks likely face lower odds. In sum, foundation grants are highly competitive, with success chances anywhere from under 10% up to ~50% depending on the funder's approach, and the general pressure on this part of the sector has grown since 2015.

Corporate and Community Grant Schemes

Corporate philanthropy and small community grant programmes have seen some of the most dramatic competition increases. These often have easy application processes (to encourage engagement), which leads to enormous applicant pools and tiny success fractions. The SPAR Community Cashback example (0.36% success) is an extreme case, effectively a lottery for charities. Other corporate grants (bank community funds, supermarket grants, etc.) also commonly report success rates well below 5%.

Because companies use these programmes to engage many groups (sometimes for PR impact), they tend to open them to all comers, resulting in thousands of bids for a limited pot. Over the last 5 years, many charities have increasingly tried their luck with such schemes as traditional funds became harder to get - unfortunately yielding a lot of wasted effort for most. On the positive side, some corporations and community foundations have started to cap or segment their grant rounds to improve odds. But overall, open-call corporate grants remain a long shot, and their popularity in the late 2010s/early 2020s contributed to very low average success rates sector-wide.

Conclusion

In summary, charity grant success rates have generally declined or remained challenging over the past decade. Around 2015-2018, many charities were already finding that only ~10-20% of their grant applications succeeded. A brief period of expanded funding in 2020 lifted success rates in some cases (e.g. up to 40% for certain surveys), but this was not sustained. By 2025, the consensus is that grant funding is harder to obtain than ever for most UK charities. Total grant money from key sources (especially government) has decreased in real terms, while the number of applicants has grown, leading to intense competition. It's not uncommon for well-prepared charities to submit dozens of applications to win just a handful of grants.

Not all funders are equally competitive, some niche or invite-only funds still approve a large share of proposals, but on the whole the sector's "success rate" proxy metrics are worrying. For example, the proportion of charities receiving any government grant has fallen, and surveys indicate many more fundraisers chasing the same foundation funds. Every big new grant programme (whether a government scheme or a corporate giveaway) now tends to draw overwhelming demand (often hundreds or thousands of bids), forcing funders to turn away the majority of applicants.

Going forward, this trend has prompted calls for changes: funders are urged to be more transparent about success rates and to simplify processes so charities don't waste resources on long-shot bids. Some funders have indeed streamlined applications or introduced staged filters to mitigate the burden of low success odds. However, these process tweaks aside, the underlying maths remains difficult - unless more funding is made available or fewer charities seek grants, success rates are likely to stay relatively low. Charities therefore must plan for a competitive environment: recent data suggests that even a 1-in-4 or 1-in-5 success rate is an achievement in the 2020s, and many will experience far lower hit rates on grant applications.

In conclusion, over the last 5-10 years UK charity grant success rates have generally trended downward, with a slight upswing during the peak of COVID funding followed by a return to tight competition. Different funders show different patterns (from ~50% success in some lottery funds to under 10% in many open calls), but virtually all types have seen heightened demand and pressure. Charities today must navigate an environment where most grant applications do not succeed,making strategic targeting, relationship-building, and efficient use of fundraising time more critical than ever.

Sources

• LarkOwl (Caroline Notman), Trust Fundraising Success Rates - survey data on grant application hit rates in 2019 vs 2021, and commentary on trends
• Gifted Philanthropy 2025 Trusts & Foundations Survey - findings on average success rates (~35%) and factors affecting success
• Charity Commission / Civil Society News - statistics on charity income from government grants (2021-2022 drop)
• Association of Charitable Foundations - Foundation Giving Trends 2022 (increase in foundation grant-making in 2020/21)
• National Lottery Heritage Fund - Heritage and Place Report (grant success ~55% and stable for 2013-2021)
• Arts Council England - Annual Report 2023/24 (Arts grants success rates ~20-30%)
• Esmée Fairbairn Foundation - Funding Data 2024 (open application success ~6%)
• Clothworkers' Foundation - Annual Review 2024 (open grants success 47%, down from ~50+%)
• Directory of Social Change - Funds Online analysis (2025) on application odds
• Jules Thorn Trust - Grant Programmes Report 2024 (applications +50% in 2020, success rate fell from 65% to 50%)
• Paul Hamlyn Foundation evidence to Parliament (2016) on low success (6% for Youth Fund)