Data does not change systems on its own. But it does something important: it holds a mirror up to practice, making it harder to look away. Four years into the DEI Data Standard, we now have the first cross-funder analysis of what that mirror shows — and the picture is more complex, and more hopeful, than a simple story of inequity.
What four years of the DEI Data Standard has taught us is that the story of inequitable funding is real, but it is not fixed. The analysis published today shows that when foundations make deliberate choices — when they design programmes with equity at their centre, when they interrogate their own pipelines, when they ask uncomfortable questions about who is succeeding and who isn't — the numbers change. The past does not have to dictate the future, the distribution of funding can be different, more equitable.
But here is what the data also tells us: this work is genuinely complex, and we do it a disservice when we treat it as simple. Aggregated figures flatter us into thinking we understand more than we do. An organisation led by Women & Girls has a meaningfully different experience of the funding system than one led by Older Women. Communities Experiencing Racial Inequity as a broad category obscures significant variation within it. Equity cannot be approached with a broad brush — it requires an intersectional lens, rigorous analysis, and the humility to keep asking harder questions of ourselves even when the headline numbers look encouraging.
That complexity is also an argument for collaboration. No single foundation, however committed, can generate the volume of data needed to surface these patterns with confidence. The insights in today's report were only possible because four funders were willing to share their data and sit with findings that were, at times, uncomfortable. That is what collective action looks like in practice — and it is what the sector needs more of, not less.
Equity cannot be approached with a broad brush — it requires an intersectional lens, rigorous analysis, and the humility to keep asking harder questions of ourselves even when the headline numbers look encouraging.
This is why we are moving the DEI Data Standard to be hosted by Funders Together. The Standard has always been a shared resource; now it will sit within shared infrastructure, alongside the other collaborative tools and networks the sector needs to work effectively. If we are serious about building an equitable funding landscape, we need the architecture to support that ambition over the long term — not just in moments of enthusiasm, but consistently, year on year.
The report we are publishing today is the start. It is the first time cross-funder, intersectional DEI data has been analysed at this scale, and it will not be the last. We intend to build on it so we can bring in more funders, to deepen the analysis, and make the findings more useful and more actionable over time.
But this is only possible through meaningful collaboration. Use the standard, share what you find. Act on what it tells you, and join the leading funders in a mission to make grant giving more equitable.
For more information, help implementing the DEI Data Standard or to join the working group, please email Josh Cockcroft at [email protected]
Download the report Equity in UK Grant Making (2026)