Trust fundraising success rates 2025

A long awaited update to a fan fave

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This week…

…our espresso machine broke.

Shit.

I’d crowdfund for a replacement Sage but in the context of the world in which we live, outsourcing basic adulting feels uneccessary and tasteless.

In other news, these chilli plants in the greenhouse are really starting to come to life. I don’t have the heart to tell them that they’ve left it a bit late. Maybe they’ll do well over winter as houseplants?

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Today’s article…

…forms part of our Fundraising ROI’s data deep dive series and is one you won’t want to miss.

The title speaks for itself. We’ll let the article do the talking.

Thank you for being part of our community and for letting us email you each month.

We’re so grateful to each and every one of you,

Tony and Caroline

p.s. popping a cheeky upgrade button in here in case you love this piece and want more of what we have to offer. All proceeds will go towards the cost of a new (or maybe refurbished) coffee machine.

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Trust fundraising success rates 2025

by Caroline Danks

Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash

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Without fail, the most visited article on our website is the one entitled ‘Trust Fundraising Success Rates’.

Embarrassingly, it’s rather out of date.

With private trusts and foundations having overtaken the government in total amount given to UK non-profit organisations, it feels like an opportune time to update it.

This mini report takes a deep dive into the trusts and foundations specific data gathered during February 2025 as part of our overall Fundraising ROI’s study.

Excitingly (for total data geeks like me at least), I’ve aligned our own findings alongside those gathered by our friends at Gifted Philanthropy.

We highly recommend checking out their report ‘2025 Trusts and Foundations Insights Survey’ (you’ll need to scroll down the page a bit to find it). It goes into a lot of detail. Anyone doing trust fundraising or managing a trust fundraiser will absolutely want to read it.

The respondents

• 62 charities responded to Fundraising ROI’s 2025. Of these, 57 reported data on trusts and foundations.

• 81% respondents had employed professional fundraiser/s for 3 years or more (76% in 2021).

• This is comparable to Gifted Philanthropy’s respondents - 80% reported a professional trusts and foundations programme for 3 years or more.

• Respondents to Fundraising ROI’s represented a roughly 50/50 split between small charities (income of under £1m) and large charities (income of over £1m).

• This compares with 57% large charities in 2021.

• Again, this is (usefully!) similar to those that responded to Gifted Philanthropy’s survey. 45% had an income up to £1m and 55% had an income of £1m +.

Trusts and foundations success rates

The average success rate for established trusts and foundations programmes led by professional fundraisers in 2024/2025 is 41%.

This means that for every 5 applications sent, you could expect 2 (ish) to be successful.

Like ROI, your success rate will change according to various factors, for example, it’s likely to be lower if:

• Your charity is completely new to trust fundraising.

• You’re new to trust fundraising and still finding your feet.

• You’re in a niche area with limited options (international development colleagues, women and girls charities, refugee organisations, racialised minority groups, we see you).

• Your case for support doesn’t answer all the core information which (most) funders want to know in a succinct and compelling way.

• You’re using AI to spaff out crappy applications (or ‘crapplications’ if you will..).

• You have a gap in your team, e.g. your trust fundraiser left and it’s taken a while to replace them.

• You could probably make more time for research.

• Your charity’s website was last updated in 2017.

On the flip side, it’s likely to be higher if:

• Your charity has been doing trust fundraising successfully for a long time.

• You’ve personally been in post for many years, managing a portfolio of (mostly) warm supporters.

• Your cause is well publicised and is having a media ‘moment’.

• You (and your colleagues) have good relationships with the people who manage the trusts you’re working with.

• Your research is thorough and you update it regularly (even for long time supporters).

• You’ve met many of your trust funders in person.

• You make time for stewardship and reporting

How does charity size impact?

Possible reasons for the difference?

• Larger organisations are sending more than double the number of applications. This represents a different strategic approach - more applications to more funders which are likely less targeted.

• Smaller charities have fewer resources so need to be more discerning about where they place them.

• General funder preference for smaller organisations?

What about the data from funders?

Rather fortuitously, my excellent colleague Lucy Stone (from the brilliantly named No Stone Unturned Fundraising - go and say hi to her on LinkedIn) has started to collate a list entitled Funder Success Rates, a crowdsourced directory of known, recent data.

At the time of writing, there were 69 funders listed, along with their awarding percentages. Of the 69:

• 26 awarded grants at a rate of 10% or less

• 19 awarded grants at a rate of between 11% and 25%

• 15 awarded grants at a rate of between 26% and 50%

• 9 awarded grants at a rate of 50% or more

In percentage terms, this means that in 2025:

• 38% funders had a success rate of 10% or less

• 27% funders had a success rate of between 11% and 25%

• 22% funders had a success rate of between 26% and 50%

• 13% funders had a success rate of 50% or more

Like me, you may wish to read this again and sit with it for a moment. Let it percolate like a pour-over coffee.

It’s easy to see these stats and get caught up in a doom spiral;

• 65% of funders award grants at a rate of 25% or LESS.

• 87% of funders award grants at a rate of 50% or LESS.

Oof.

Of course, averages differ wildly because there is such diversity in the operations, size, preferences of trusts and foundations. This data alone isn’t especially indicative of anything in particular (revisiting it this time next year might give us something more conclusive?).

These stats paint a very different picture from the information gathered by us and by Gifted Philanthropy.

Why???

Well, I dont actually know.

It’s possible that many of the applications received by these funders will be from people who don’t really know how it all works - very different to highly experienced, professionals that form a part of the highly systematic and long embedded nonprofit industrial complex.

Maybe this reduced success rate has something to do with the ‘crapplications’?

It’s important not to hold these figures too closely to our hearts as we go about our work. What should matter to your organisation is the success rate of the specific funder/s you’re applying to, given that they’re all so vastly different. And of course context is everything and relationships are paramount.

Further reflections…

1. In general, the more applications you make, the lower your success rate will be.

This was also one of the key findings from the Gifted Philanthropy research (though not reflected in their headline figures when compared with ours).

Of course, trust fundraising is a numbers game. You’ll inevitably get a 0% success rate for every application you don’t make.

But ask yourself this:

‘Would I raise more money if I invested a little more time into researching trusts and applying only to those that are really solid matches?

What if I applied to 10% fewer trusts and spent the extra time really tailoring and personalising my approaches?’

Depending on how you want to view it, the data might be making a compelling case for fewer applications (of a better match and a higher quality). This is especially relevant for fundraisers working in charities with a long history of trust fundraising / established portfolios. Less so for those who are starting fresh and who need to test the waters.

2. Prioritise existing supporters

Gifted Philanthropy also tracked success for cold approaches compared with repeat approaches.

The results were a success rate of 24% for cold and 63% for repeat - a strong indicator that you’ll want to prioritise stewardship and relationship building with your existing trusts before tackling your portfolio of cold prospects.

Sounds obvious, but it’s always useful to have the data to back it up (we all know that trustee who likes to prioritise volume of proposals over reporting and relationship building).

3. Don’t forget to apply context

Did anyone else look at the average success rate and think ‘uh oh, mine is much lower, I must be a terrible fundraiser?’

I certainly did.

Then I wrote the list above about what makes success rates go up and down and reminded myself (again) that context is everything.

To satisfy your personal curiosity, my own personal success rates for 2024 were:

• 17% / just under 1 in 5 successful applications - a small charity new to trusts and foundations, transitioning away from a predominantly government funded model to a privately funded model.

• 11% / just over 1 in 10 successful applications – an entirely cold / speculative portfolio for a large, national charity.

Maybe I’m not as good as I think I am?

One for my therapist.

But the truth is that making cold approaches and trialling trust fundraising for the first time will mor likely result in lower success rates than applying to funders who have been supporting you forever.

Remember that the cohort represented in the data have;

• experienced fundraisers;

• established trust fundraising programmes and;

• (highly probably) warm portfolios.

Remember this if you’re comparing your own efforts and failing to consider the conditions under which you’re fundraising.

4. Good vibes only

I try to be positive. I really do. I mostly believe that the world is going to hell in a handcart AND that there is beauty and magic to be found absolutely everywhere.

In his recently released report entitled ‘What’s going on with grant making in 2025’, David Burgess states:

“The total amount of funding distributed by grant makers this year will be broadly in line with previous years.

Rather than being influenced by the big picture, fundraisers need to concentrate on the trends and changes within their specific pool of funders and prospects.

A lot of the announcements you’re seeing are for funders who were never on your prospect list in the first place.”

Mic drop.

Dave’s report is well worth a read as is Jo Jeffery’s curated list (aka The List) of trusts and foundations that have closed, paused or spent out.

Social media algorithms adore a bad news story and will push it at us like a small child demanding a bag of Skittles in the supermarket.

It’s not that everything is rosy.

But it might not be totally awful either.

If the stats are to be believed, then the experienced and engaged cohort of fundraisers that are actively capturing their data and sharing it for others to learn from are doing bloody well, despite what the internet would have you believe.

As I said in our main ROI’s report:

We can pick and choose data to illustrate a point that is most convenient to us.

The 2025 data on trust fundraising success rates does not feed into the ‘everything is shit’ narrative and we need to be both honest and celebratory about it.

That felt like a LOT today. I hope you found it useful - please do reply to this email (all replies come straight to me I promise) and let me know you own thoughts and reflections.

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Another huge thank you to the colleagues whose work helped me to pull together this mini report, Konna Beeson, Amy Stevens, Lucy Stone, David Burgess and Jo Jeffery and to Stephanie Smith from Refugee Roots who inspired post-publication edits.

Teamwork is the dreamwork.

Please follow their stuff, express your gratitude, invest in their services and buy them coffees.