FPR results 2025-2026: A spotlight on community foundations

The latest Foundation Practice Rating (FPR) report reveals significant progress in UK charitable foundations’ practices in diversity, accountability and transparency – marking the strongest results in the initiative’s five‑year history. 

The results also highlight a trend of community foundations in our network outperforming the average foundation.

  

Stand-out results for community foundations

  

The FPR is an annual assessment of 100 UK grant-making foundations, evaluating foundations’ practices across three critical and interrelated domains: diversity, accountability, and transparency.

In the diagram below, it shows that five community foundations were randomly selected for FPR, all achieving an overall score of A or B, compared to the majority of foundations rating B, C or D overall.  The diagram also shows that, in Year Two, eight community foundations were randomly selected, and all achieved an overall score of A or B again.  In Year Two, the majority of selected foundations rated either B or C:

  

    

  

In Year Three, as shown in the diagram below, 16 community foundations were randomly selected, rating A, B or C overall.  The majority of the 100 foundations in Year Three rated B or C.

    

  

    

  

As shown below, all community foundations randomly selected in Year Four rated B or C overall, compared to the majority of foundations in the cohort rating B or C.  The diagram also shows that the overall rating of randomly selected community foundations in Year Five (2025-2026) has increased to A or B, compared to the majority of foundations rating B or C. 

  

  

In addition, our members Wiltshire and Swindon Community Foundation and Cheshire Community Foundation both achieved an A in each domain in 2026 (alongside another non-community foundation).  Only one foundation has ever achieved this before, so this is a fantastic result. 

Emma de Closset, UKCF’s Chief Executive, said:  “Community foundations are rooted in the places we serve, and that closeness shapes how we fund locally. We listen, we stay transparent and we hold ourselves accountable to the people who rely on us.

“It is fantastic to see that community foundations are consistently performing strongly in the Foundation Practice Rating.  These results recognise the values that guide our work every day: trust, equity and a commitment to making funding more accessible and responsive to local need.”

  

Sector-wide improvements

  

Between Year Three and Year Four, changes were made in how foundations were randomly selected.  FPR switched to using UK Grantmaking, produced by 360Giving, which includes a wider range of funders, including non-charitable ones, rather than randomly selecting foundations from a list provided by Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF) and UKCF members separately in previous years.

This year’s results across the collective of randomly selected UK foundations are the best so far.  They show statistically significant improvements since the initiative began assessing foundations’ practices five years ago.  This year:

• 12 foundations achieved an overall A grade (the highest grade) – the highest number ever to achieve this in one year.

• Three foundations achieved an A in each domain (diversity, accountability, and transparency) and an A overall – only one foundation has ever achieved this in the four years previously.

• The number of foundations that achieved a D (the lowest grade) on all three domains is the lowest ever – seven (down from 12 in Year Four).

• Every criterion was achieved by at least one foundation – demonstrating that the rating isn't looking for the impossible. (Every criterion has been achieved every year.)

“Five years ago, the Foundation Practice Rating found that as foundations we had work to do to improve our practices, especially in diversity,” said Danielle Walker Palmour, Director of Friends Provident Foundation who established the initiative to help assess and improve practices across the sector.

“These results show that as a sector, we're making headway. There's still work to do, but improvements have been made. That’s good news for the charities who come to us for funding. And it’s positive news, ultimately, for those they work with and support.”