Responding to the Foundation Practice Rating 2023

We are pleased that the Foundation has moved from a B to an A score in this year’s Foundation Practice Rating. This reflects intentional work from staff and trustees across a number of years. But is it true to say we struggle with the idea that we have achieved the ​‘best score’ when we know we have much more to do.

PHF is one of the largest independent grants making bodies in the UK and we have a deep and longstanding commitment to justice and equity which is central to our mission. Because of this context we set ourselves a high bar, and take the view that this is work that will never be finished or achieved as such.

We also feel the rating has been kind to us in some areas, for instance it cites evidence from our India team on consulting communities in determining funding priorities and this is not something we do in a consistent way across all of our programmes.

Thanks, in part, to the ratings we now publish demographic data on all our staff and trustees as well as pay gap data on gender and ethnicity. This shows the power of the Rating and why we are pleased to have helped create the work through our funding – it is a timely reminder to keep going back to our commitments and making sure they are followed through and enacted.

We’re making three commitments relating to areas of our strategy where we want to make progress next year. We will:

1. Continue to diversify our board and staff
   We will use the findings from our recent survey on the demographics of board members and staff to direct our recruitment strategies to attract people from a wider range of backgrounds
2. Commit to listening more and responding better to grantee feedback
   We’ve recently received data from our Grantee and Applicant perception survey, and will be sharing our response to what we’ve heard
3. Make it clearer how to report malpractice at the organisations we fund

Alongside this work, we will continue to embed our commitment to bringing more voices into the Foundation through different approaches to consultation, engagement and staff development and we will try to make this work more visible throughout our work.

We welcome feedback on our plans and progress; you can get in touch with us at dei@phf.org.uk or complete this anonymous survey.