Building Better Financial Futures: A Year in Review

As we look back on the last financial year, and at a time of growing financial pressure for many young people and communities, the Foundation has remained true to its purpose - improving the financial futures of disadvantaged young people and communities in the UK.  We continued to engage with our UK charity network and build relationships with like-minded grant makers to ensure that we remained clear on our purpose and impact.

What was new for 2025/26?

With our co-funders, we launched the Brummie Bursary in Birmingham in October 2025. Managed by Money Ready and supported by a network of charities across the city, the Bursary is focussed on helping 16-25 year olds to overcome financial hardship and/or provide small development grants towards a positive destination (you can read more about this here). To date, we’ve supported over 220 young people with small bursaries. Demand has been high, with more than a quarter of applications requesting  IT equipment. This reinforces what our charity partners already know: digital access remains one of the biggest barriers facing young people today.

The Brummie bursary builds on the success of our Glasgow initiative (the Wee Bursary) which has supported more than 800 children and young people over the past two years.

Our achievements and performance

Our last annual report highlights our funding impact across our charity network with over £1.5million grant funding distributed to date and over 11,000 young people supported through financial education, learning and employability programmes. Our charity network optimises our multi-year grant funding to ensure that young people are supported and have opportunities to thrive.

Looking ahead

In our 10^th anniversary year, 2026 provides a strong platform to leverage our programmes and funding. In April 2026, alongside our co-funders, we’ll launch the Wee Bursary in Edinburgh - with London to follow later in the year - helping young people overcome hardship and take their next steps with confidence. We are conscious of the ongoing cost of living crisis affecting many low-income young people and communities. We will continue to focus on where the Foundation can “best” make a difference.

Our ambition remains simple - and powerful: to keep building better financial futures, together.