Just one grant maker out of 100 looked at in a study of funders' diversity, accountability and transparency work this year has achieved top marks in all three areas.

The research has revealed that the Community Foundation for Tyne & Wear and Northumberland is the only funder to sweep the board in achieving the study's top ‘A rating’ in each area.

The Foundation Practice Rating (FPR) body that carried out the research has also revealed the North East of England based funder is the only grant maker to achieve this grade for its work improving diversity.

“This also shows that high performance across the board does not rely on having huge resources,” said the rating organisation of the Foundation, which had an income of £5.8m income for the year ending March 2023.

Areas of strong work by the Tyne & Wear and Northumberland Community Foundation are its plans to improve diversity of trustees and having specific targets in place.

“It’s a testament to our team and trustees for whom diversity, accountability and transparency are vital parts of our work, said Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland chief executive Rob Williamson.

“But we’re not complacent and know we have more we can and should do. For example, we’ve recently commissioned an accessibility review of our grant-making process from a leading regional disability rights charity and look forward to its findings and making improvements.”

This is the third year the FPR has looked at grant makers’ diversity, accountability and transparency. Each year a different randomly selected group of foundations is covered.

“The origins of the initiative lie in a concern that charitable funders can exercise a lot of power but without much accountability,” said the Tyne & Wear and Northumberland Community Foundation

“The FPR aims to foster positive change and improved practice among foundations by emphasising not what is funded, but the practice lying behind grant-makers’ decisions on funding."

Foundations selected are unable to opt out or influence the outcome, adds the FPR.

The FPR says that as with previous years “diversity was the weakest domain”, with no foundations achieving its ‘A rating’ before Tyne & Wear and Northumberland Community Foundation.

This year nearly a third of foundations received its lowest score of D and 11 scored nothing.

The FPR points out this is an improvement on the previous year when 22 foundations scored nothing on diversity.

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