As City Bridge Foundation announces a new 10-year policy, Sacha Rose-Smith, chief funding director at City Bridge Foundation explains the changes.
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It’s hard to believe just over five years have gone by since the world was plunged into the most severe health crisis in a generation; one which beyond the immediate effects of the pandemic itself, left a lasting imprint on our lives and laid bare the inequalities that exist in society.

Covid is just one of the era-defining events of recent years; along with the cost-of-living crisis and the Black Lives Matter movement. In short, the country has changed, London has changed and as the capital’s biggest independent funder, we need to change too.

That’s where our new funding policy, Standing With Londoners, comes in. The name is indicative – we will continue to move away from the traditional top-down funder-grantee relationships of the past to a more collaborative, more relational approach, based on solidarity.

Since we began funding London’s civil society 30 years ago, we’ve awarded over £840 million to organisations doing amazing work to make the capital a fairer place.

While tackling inequality and injustice, and promoting fairness, have always been an important part of our mission, the new policy will position us far more firmly and clearly as a social justice funder, with an emphasis on tackling systemic issues and root causes of the issues which affect Londoners.

In particular, it will focus on four key areas: climate justice; access to justice – including supporting people to access their rights and find solutions to a range of problems; tackling racial injustice; and addressing economic inequality. The first new funding programme will launch in the autumn – the rest will follow next year.

In the past, we’ve funded in a very broad way, not least thanks to an additional £200 million of funding which has played a vital role in supporting the sector to weather the crosswinds of the pandemic and the other storms which have crossed its bows.

That funding is now coming to an end which, along with the changes to the landscape I’ve already mentioned, means we need to sharpen our focus, to make sure we are using our funding in a way that delivers maximum impact.

We’ve already moved in this direction through strategic work such as the Anchor programme, for infrastructure organisations tackling inequality; Propel – a cross-sector collaboration empowering organisations led by and for the communities they serve to deliver long-term change; and our £10 million suicide prevention programme.

These strategic programmes have enabled us to trial different ways of working which we will seek to emulate under the new policy, including harnessing the expertise, skills and insight of people with lived experience throughout the process.

We also offered, and will offer under our new policy, pre-application phone calls to simplify the process of applying for grants. Meanwhile, long-term core funding will be offered as a default, along with unrestricted funding where possible, something we know the sector has been crying out for.

In addition to our funding, we’ll be looking at what the sector as a whole needs to do to leverage long-term change, supporting activities such as infrastructure and capacity building, community organising, campaigning and advocacy.

All of this work has been informed by a year-long process of engagement, research and consultation, to deliver a funding policy which we believe will best serve the capital’s civil society and have the maximum impact on the issues facing Londoners today.

City Bridge Foundation has been serving Londoners for over 900 years, as custodian of the five Thames crossings we’re responsible for and, for the last 30 of those years, as a major funder to the capital’s civil society.

I believe this policy, which marks a defining new chapter in our long history, is testament to our continued commitment to support the capital’s residents and the organisations which support them; to work collaboratively with our partners to leverage change; to literally and metaphorically Stand With Londoners.

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