Our Approach

We identify relevant organisations through our diverse networks, proactive research and recommendations from grantee-partners and peer funders.

We provide flexible, unrestricted funding as well as funding for research and contributing to pooled funds. In addition to providing grants we use our influence to champion our grantees to other potential donors and partners.

How we make decisions on grants

Indigo holds a minimum of two trustee meetings per year, although ad hoc meetings may also be called. Grant decisions are made on a rolling basis throughout the year with the majority being made between formal trustee meetings. All Indigo trustees are decision makers on all grants and the Trust does not operate any sub-committees.

Reporting requirements for grants

We aim to keep this as simple and as light touch as possible. We tailor reporting requirements to the grant and will provide clear information on when reports are required. Reporting can be provided in writing or through meetings/calls. The format of reports can be in any format that is most efficient and we are happy to consider reports that have been prepared for other funders.

Responding to Feedback & Improving Our Approach

We continually reflect on our approach to grant-making, through dialogue with our existing grantee-partners, peer funders and a range of ‘critical friends’.

In 2025, we worked with Modern Grantmaking to carry out an anonymous feedback survey of our grantee-partners. To recognise the time involved, we made a £100 donation to each organisation. We were pleased to receive an 80% response rate and, even more importantly, thoughtful and constructive feedback about what we are doing well and where we could improve.

As a result of the feedback survey, we have introduced a number of changes, including:

Welcoming new partners through an onboarding call, with trustees joining where appropriate.
Creating a Partner Handbook that explains how we work, what partners can expect from us, and includes a simple summary of our grant terms and conditions. Summary version of our partner handbook.
Being clearer about renewals and exits, so partners know when decisions will be made and have time to plan. Where we decide to leave a funding area, we aim to give at least one year's notice.
Developing our Funder Plus offer, with dedicated funding each year to provide additional support beyond grants, helping partners strengthen their organisations and navigate transitions when funding comes to an end.

We know there is always more to learn, and we will continue to listen, reflect and improve alongside our partners.

Convening and influencing

In the summer of 2025, we worked with Philanthropy Insight, and other Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, to host an event for a group of Asian philanthropists, to share practice around our grant making - topics covered included impact investing, power and privilege and participatory grant-making.

Transparency & Accountability

As part of Indigo's commitment to being transparent, we publish all of our grants using the 360Giving Data Standard

We believe that with better information, grant-makers can be more effective and strategic decision-makers. 360Giving provides support for grant makers to publish their grants data openly, to understand their data, and to use the data to create online tools that make grant- making more effective.

To search The Indigo Trust's funding data use GrantNav the 360giving search tool*

* This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This means the data is freely accessible to anyone to be used and shared as they wish. The data must be attributed to The Indigo Trust.

For external scrutiny and accountability, Indigo is an active member of the Foundation Practice Rating (FPR), which rates UK grant-makers, without their permission, on their diversity, accountability and transparency.

Previous reports have revealed that the Trust could be more robust in addressing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and you can read about our actions to address this via the following link Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

You can download the full FPR 2024/25 report here and for further information see Shining a light on foundation practice

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Partnerships & Networks

Our grant-making includes collaborating and contributing to joint funds. We also belong to a number of networks that share learning, intelligence, knowledge and best practice.

Recent funder collaborations:

Independent Human Rights Fund for Scotland
Justice Together Initiative
Foundation Practice Rating

Indigo Trust is a member of:

The Association of Charitable Foundations
Funders Together

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Contact Us

Registered Charity No: 1075920

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