The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) has published our 2025 annual report, reflecting on a year of continued support for those working to create lasting social change.
Guided by the Quaker values of peace, equality, simplicity, and truth, JRCT funds organisations and individuals doing charitable work to address the root causes of conflict and injustice in our society.
In 2025, JRCT awarded £13.58 million in grants, ending the year with 314 active grants. Alongside grant-making, we worked to strengthen our own organisation, improving our systems and culture to sustain our mission for the long term and better support changemakers.
Heard, a Sustainable Future grantholder(Photo credit: The Kind Lens)
From grassroots initiatives to larger, established organisations, our grantees share a commitment to creating lasting systemic change. Throughout the year, JRCT awarded 110 new grants across five areas: Peace and Security, Power and Accountability, Rights and Justice, Sustainable Future, and Northern Ireland.
Chair Jonathan Heawood said: "The breadth of the work we supported in 2025 reflects our commitment to long-term approaches and to backing the people and communities on the front lines of change."
The Worker Support Centre, a Power and Accountability grantholder
We recognise that meaningful social change takes time. JRCT aims to be a supportive and responsive funder, maintaining proportionate reporting requirements, building trusted relationships with grant-holders and offering additional support where appropriate.
Last year, 85% of new grants awarded were to returning organisations, and more than three quarters of grants awarded were for two years or longer, providing greater stability for organisations working in increasingly complex and changing environments and reflecting our commitment to long-term change.
We are constantly learning from our grantees to improve our own approach to funding. Throughout the last year we continued to develop a simple approach to learning and impact, informed by the experiences of our grant-holders and reflecting the long-term nature of systemic change. We also participated in the Funders for Race Equality Alliance racial justice audit, using the findings to better understand our grant-making and identify opportunities to strengthen future practice.
In the report, we demonstrate some of the wide-ranging work supported by the Trust, from strengthening democratic accountability and defending human rights to supporting peacebuilding, climate action and community-led change.
Migrant Centre NI, a Rights and Justice grantee
2025 was an important year for organisational development at JRCT. Alongside our grant-making, we began to prepare for our decennial strategy review, which will shape the Trust’s priorities from 2027 onwards. This process is informed by listening and engagement, to ensure we understand how best to support those working on complex long-term challenges.
As part of this work, we began recruitment for a head of reparations in 2025 to lead our work to address the origins of our endowment, developing an approach to reparations that aligns with its charitable purposes for the public benefit.
Voicing the Void, a Northern Ireland grantee
JRCT's investment strategy continues to support its charitable mission alongside its long term financial sustainability. The Trust invests through responsible fund managers whose approaches align with its Quaker values, seeking to support enterprises that contribute to positive social and environmental outcomes while avoiding investments that conflict with its aims, including fossil fuel extractive companies.
Although the investment portfolio underperformed its benchmark during 2025, JRCT's long-term investment approach remains focused on supporting its grant-making in perpetuity while encouraging ethical, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable business practices.
As we develop our next long-term strategy, our focus remains on understanding how best to support those working to address the root causes of conflict and injustice, while continuing to learn, adapt and respond to an evolving social landscape.
As Jonathan Heawood writes in the report: "We must respond to the realities facing the communities we support while remaining firmly rooted in our core purpose: addressing root causes."
Read the full report below:
Picture credits: Images courtesy of Voicing the Void NI, Worker Support Centre, Heard, Migrant Centre NI