An overview of the projects we funded in 2022, along with our full financial accounts
I’ve been familiar with the work of Trust for London since I first moved to London 26 years ago. I’m strongly committed to our approach to tackling poverty as a funder, involving those most affected in the work and learning from their experience, while also making sure what we’re doing is effective. It’s really important to be driven by values, but commitment to values isn’t enough. We need to ensure that what we’re doing is having the intended impact, and in this annual review we set out what and how we’re doing.
Omar Khan, chair
A challenging year
Our mission is to reduce poverty and inequality in London. In 2022, this goal seemed further away than ever before. The cost-of-living crisis has pushed more people into poverty than anytime in living memory, and crisis on top of crisis has worn down even the most resilient.
When things are this tough, no-one should feel pressured to look for positives. But if you believe things can change, looking to London’s civil society for hope is a good place to start.
Organisations across the city stepped up their work to help low-income communities throughout 2022. Being able to support this work is one of the many privileges of working for an independent, endowed charitable foundation.
We’ve been prioritising funding projects that tackle the underlying causes of poverty since 2018. Issues like unaffordable housing, the immigration system, badly paid and insecure work and an inadequate system of social security. This work continued in 2022 and we’re now entering the final year of a strategy that has served this aim well.
Funding highlights
During 2022 we gave out over £13m, totalling 139 grants. Alongside this we provided £3.38m in social investment to support six growing social enterprises. We also invested a further £1.4m to provide support in the form of convening, co-production and participatory grants processes, evaluation and capacity development.
The current cost-of-living crisis has pushed more people into poverty than at any time in a century. This in turn had a significant impact on our partners in civil society.
The bulk of our grants were awarded through our seven priority areas, but we also gave out responsive funding to provide extra support during an especially challenging year. We gave out an extra £3.7m in emergency funding to organisations across the city, including to London Community Foundation’s Together for London fund.
2022 also saw us double down on our commitment to fight for racial and disability justice, launching two major new funds in partnership with City Bridge Trust. £4m has been awarded to the new Racial Justice Fund, and £3m for the new Disability Justice Fund.
Download the full report
31 August 2023