ANNUAL Impact Report 2025
WELCOME
FORD FAMILY FOUNDATION 2025 IMPACT REPORT
Established in 2020, the Ford Family Foundation is a progressive UK family foundation that backs people and organisations using enterprise to tackle entrenched social challenges. We do this through a blend of grants, donations and social investment, alongside business support and mentorship, working in close partnership with universities, founders, charities and fellow funders across the UK and beyond.
At the Ford Family Foundation, we believe entrepreneurship is the most powerful force for transformative, enduring social change and economic equity, creating lasting value for founders, communities and society at large. Over the past five years, we have had the privilege of backing exceptional social entrepreneurs whose work reaches communities around the world. Our funding has now surpassed £2 million across twentyseven of the most ambitious and innovative social disruptors, each working at the forefront of areas of critical need.
2025 was a year of significant milestones. Through the organisations we support, our work reached one million people worldwide. IGNITE, our flagship programme for student and graduate social entrepreneurs, deepened its reach across UK universities and welcomed Barclays Eagle Labs as Innovation Partner. We were recognised in the Pioneers Post and NatWest SE100 Index alongside established sector leaders, and we welcomed two new trustees to help guide the next stage of our growth.
As we enter our fifth year, we wanted to pause and share our work to celebrate the organisations we back, the remarkable founders who lead them, and the partners we have the privilege of working alongside. This report celebrates the work of the founders and organisations we back, and the tremendous impact they continue to deliver.
The Ford Family Foundation Team
OUR APPROACH
We believe entrepreneurship is the most powerful force for transformative, enduring social change. Our impact works at two levels, designed to deliver outsized results which advance financial and social equity, and transform lives, communities and society.
Equitable Access to Entrepreneurship.
We work to widen access for social entrepreneurs using business for good providing capital, networks, mentorship and visibility that founders too often go without. In practice, this means offering patient capital and hands-on support to founders who can be overlooked by the wider funding ecosystem: first-time founders, emerging university talent, founders from under represented backgrounds, and founders building solutions in areas that conventional capital is less likely to fund.
Catalysing Public Benefit.
We invest in the impact those entrepreneurs go on to create for the people, communities and systems they serve. Our role doesn’t end when capital is deployed. We stay with our investments for the long term, providing follow-on capital, ongoing mentorship and sustained advisory input. Alongside, we work with an ecosystem of partners, universities, accelerators, sector specialists and fellow funders, to build a thriving community of support around the founders we back. Partnerships with Barclays Eagle Labs, Durham University Venture Lab, Capital Enterprise and others extend what those founders can access far beyond what we could offer alone.
HOW WE INVEST
We believe impact starts with how we fund. Our model combines patient capital with hands-on support, deliberately backing founders where access has been hardest to come by. Our investments are significant and often unrestricted, freeing founders to focus on delivering and building their public benefit rather than reporting. Alongside the capital, we offer mentorship and networks working as collaborators, not just funders.
The Foundation deploys four kinds of capital and support:
Grants support charities and frontline organisations to deliver immediate impact, address urgent need and build operational resilience.
Donations provide direct, often emergency support to causes aligned with the Foundation’s purpose, where speed matters more than structure.
Social investments deploy patient capital, typically equity or quasi-equity, into ventures with the potential to scale, deliver lasting change and build financial sustainability.
Business support and mentorship runs alongside every investment: time, expertise, networks, advisory hours and connections from trustees, partners and the wider ecosystem. This is the part of our model founders most often talk about.
IMPACT HEADLINES
2025 IMPACT HEADLINES
363K+ PEOPLE SUPPORTED
67 PAID WORK OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
25 GLOBAL CITIES REACHED
+2k FRONTLINE PRACTITIONERS TRAINED
30k HOT MEALS PROVIDED
80 PEOPLE EMPLOYED
50 FRONTLINE CHARITIES AND PARTNERS SUPPORTED
300k YOUNG PEOPLE EDUCATED
“Poppy came back from the Real Direction set a different person. She felt seen, valued, and it’s the first time she’s talked seriously about acting. She’s so grateful for the opportunity.”
Support Worker Havering Youth Justice Service
2025 FUNDING
£194k GRANT FUNDING £30k
CHARITY DONATIONS
14
SOCIAL ENTERPRISES FUNDED
55 UNIVERSITIES ENGAGED
£650k
SOCIAL INVESTMENT
5 CHARITABLE PURPOSES ADVANCED
“He made me believe in myself.”
Young Person CAMHS Secure Provision
9 UN SDG’S SUPPORTED
IMPACT TO DATE
TOTAL IMPACT TO DATE
£2m+
FUNDING PROVIDED 27 SOCIAL ENTERPRISES 1m+ INDIVIDUALS IMPACTED
200 JOBS CREATED
500k+ YOUNG PEOPLE EDUCATED
260k HOT MEALS PROVIDED
OUR TEAM & TRUSTEES
OUR TEAM
Chairman Tony Ford
Corporate financier and serial entrepreneur with a passion for social enterprise and philanthropy. Established the Ford Family Foundation in 2020 to set a gold standard in impact investing. Tony continues to take an active role in K3 Capital Group which he founded in 2007 as well as in various Impact investments in the UK through his Ford Family Office. These investments specialise in PSHE education, social housing, refurbished technology and HR software and e-learning.
Managing Director Laura Pulleyn
Managing Director of Ford Family Foundation, which she joined in 2023. With a background spanning CSR and social value, Laura has spent her career helping businesses and institutions understand and amplify the good they do in the world. Laura leads the foundation’s grant making, social investment, and entrepreneurship programmes managing a growing portfolio of mission-led investees, building strategic partnerships across the impact ecosystem, and overseeing IGNITE, the foundation’s flagship social venture competition.
TRUSTEES
Gemma Burgess (nee Ford)
We were delighted to welcome Gemma who is a family member to the board of trustees in June 2025. Gemma is actively involved in running her family business as well as looking after their smallholding in Conwy, North Wales and three children under ten. Gemma is passionate about helping others and brings the softer side to the aims of the Foundation and helps keep it grounded.
Commercial lawyer who entered politics in 2010 and soon rose to become a Cabinet Minister and Chairman of the Conservative party. Jake was knighted for his services to politics under Boris Johnson’s remit. Jake joined Reform UK earlier this year where he is involved with the overall strategic direction of the party ahead of the next general election. Jake became a trustee of the Foundation in June 2025 and brings tremendous insight into the social needs of today’s society and his advice and passion helps focus the Foundation on the most meaningful and impactful opportunities.
Experienced Chairman and Chief Exec who has vast experience of scaling early stage businesses through the use of technology, data and direct marketing expertise. Iain joined the Foundation as a trustee in 2023 and is actively involved in the mentoring of Real Direction, Black Excellence Network and Equal Reach. Iain also works across the Ford Family Office Portfolio as an Exec Chairman, Non- exec or consultant.
Dave is a corporate financier who has worked with Tony at K3 Capital and before for over 15 years. Dave has a great deal of experience in advising SME owners at all stages in their life cycle and has worked closely with the Ford Family Office impact investment portfolio. Dave has been a trustee since the beginning in 2020 and continues to play an active part for which we are most grateful.
Sir Jake Berry Iain Aitken
David Gardner
Annual Funding: £595,000
Funding mix: 52% grants · 42% social investment · 6% donations
Foundation established
The Foundation is founded
The Ford Family Foundation is incorporated as a UK family foundation, established to channel philanthropic and impact-led capital into entrepreneurial responses to entrenched social challenges
Founding trustees appointed
Ż Tony Ford
Ż Dave Gardner
Ż Stuart Lees
Annual Funding: £68,000
Funding mix: 100% donations
Activity:
Ż First charitable activity. Donations made to Honeypot Children’s Charity in support of vulnerable young carers, and to Beechwood Cancer Care to support people and families affected by cancer
Ż Emergency relief donation made to support housing in the wake of Storm Maria
Creating Social Enterprise
Ż Governance amended to enable social investment alongside grant-making, the foundation of the blended-capital model that defines FFF today
Ż Development of University partnerships across the UK
Ż Laura Pulleyn appointed as managing Director
Ż Iain Aitken joins as Trustee
Donations
Ż Beechwood Cancer Care Centre
Ż Song for Sue supporting Brain Tumour Research
Grants
Ż Bounceback Food CIC
Ż Real Alternative Education CIC
Social Investment
First social investment deployed into Real Direction Ltd, supporting immersive educational interventions for at-risk young people
Impact
Ż Bounceback opened its first community kitchen in Altrincham supporting 15 charity partners and providing 50,000 hot meals to those in need
Annual Funding: £470,000
Funding mix: 78% social investment · 12% grants · 10% donations
IGNITING Social Entrepreneurship:
The Foundation scaled up its direct investment in social enterprise working with ecosystem partners to respond to critical funding gaps
Donations
Ż Beechwood Cancer Care Centre
Ż Start up funding provided to Charlie’s Promise providing vital in person education to young people on the dangers of knife crime
Grant
Ż Taka Taka Zero, Durham University Enactus Project providing over 30 jobs for young people in Nairobi
Social investment:
Ż Further investment in Real Direction Ltd to scale up their groundbreaking edtech platform
IGNITE launched:
Ż IGNITE launches as the Foundation’s flagship programme, a national platform for student and graduate social entrepreneurs, co-created with Durham University Venture Lab to address a critical early-stage funding gap
Ż Receives applications from across 35 leading higher education institutions
Inaugural cohort of six ventures receives pitching workshops, 1:1 coaching a share of the £50,000 equity free grant funding:
Ż Medily AI
Ż EVEN CIC
Ż Equal Reach
Ż DEWEY Clothing
Ż CarbonTrac
Ż Verified by Maudsley
Ż Medily AI supported with a £30,000 follow on grant to prove concept
Annual Funding: £874,000
Funding mix: 74% social investment · 23% grants · 3% donations
A pivotal year
The Foundation significantly scaled its work welcoming two major new investments and achieving a landmark year of funding deployed
Grants
Ż Refugee Support Europe providing emergency global relief to refugees
Ż LooseHeadz Foundation supporting mental health in the Rugby Community
Ż Community Savings establishing the Ford Family Fund in Jersey
Social Investment
Ż Black Excellence Network Group
Ż Equal Reach Limited
Ż Continued support for Real Direction
IGNITE Round 2
Ż Foundation named in the Pioneers Post and NatWest SE100 Index
Ż Trustees Gemma Ford and Sir Jake Berry appointed
Ż IGNITE Round 2 attracts 75 applications from 50 UK universities joined by Barclays Eagle Labs as Innovation Partner, Capital Enterprise and Cambio consultancy as coaching providers
Ż AIBŌ wins the IGNITE 2025 final at Barclays Innovation Hub, Shoreditch, with the £50,000 prize fund distributed across six finalists
Ż We Donate
Ż Reporti
Ż Rephobia
Ż Harker
Ż Braille Forge
Ż Additional IGNITE grant awarded to Invisible Cities CIC, match-funded by The Rigby Foundation
Total funding since inception: £2 million
Portfolio: 27 grants and investments
2026 — Looking ahead
The Foundation continues with its ambitious mission unleashing public benefit at scale
Ż Invisible Cities CIC provided with £15,000 in match funding
Ż Launch and expansion of IGNITE Round 3
Ż First formal Social Value framework piloted
Ż Finalist in the Pioneers Post and Natwest SE100 Awards as Social Investment Pioneer
Ż Stuart Lees and Martin Robinson appointed as Non Exec Directors supporting our growing investment portfolio
Ż Invisible Cities CIC provided with £15,000 in match funding
Ż Launch of IGNITE Round 3 expanding support with Social Venture Accelerator and Ford Family Fellowship launches
Ż Over 100 hours of mentoring and 1:1 coaching provided through IGNITE
Ż Finalist in the Pioneers Post and Natwest SE100 Awards as Social Investment Pioneer
Ż Stuart Lees and Martin Robinson appointed as Non Exec Directors supporting our growing investment portfolio
Ż First formal Social Value framework piloted
Social Investment | £750,000 since 2023
REAL DIRECTION REAL RESULTS
Founded by Luke Cato, Real Direction builds immersive, digital-first educational content for young people disengaged from traditional learning. Through interactive film, the platform addresses some of the most serious issues facing young people today including violence, exploitation, substance misuse, radicalisation and mental health. Real Direction equips frontline practitioners with the tools and training to deliver preventative early intervention, engage at-risk young people, provide contextualised safeguarding, and open critical, often life-saving, conversations.
Safeguarding young people from the front door to the school gate and beyond.
The Foundation made its first investment in Real Direction in 2023 and has followed on across three years to support the venture’s continued growth and reach into the communities that need it most. From its origins in the West Midlands, Real Direction now operates nationally, working with 33 frontline delivery partners including Youth Justice Services, Pupil Referral Units, schools and colleges, the Police, NHS England and football foundations reaching over 500,000 young people in 18 regions. Every project is built for impact from start to finish, embedding lived experience in the storytelling and creating paid creative work for young people who rarely have access to the sector, including those who are NEET or have experience of the justice system. From script writing and acting to on-set production, the making of the content itself becomes a route into purposeful employment and has shown improvements in engagement, behaviour and aspiration within young people.
In 2025, Real Direction expanded its support for frontline practitioners with the launch of CIPD-accredited training, equipping professionals across youth justice, education and safeguarding with the confidence and insight to navigate difficult conversations. To date, 714 practitioners have completed the accredited training, and the wider practitioner network now reaches 1,400.
2025 Impact
300,000
YOUNG PEOPLE EDUCATED
500 HOURS OF PRODUCTION EXPERIENCE
714
PRACTITIONERS TRAINED
19 WORK EXPERIENCE
32 NEW CUSTOMERS
5 PEOPLE EMPLOYED
ALIGNING PROFIT AND PURPOSE FOR
DISPLACED TALENT.
Founded by Giselle Gonzales, Equal Reach is a B2B freelance marketplace connecting companies with vetted teams of tech talent from displaced and refugee backgrounds. The model grew out of Giselle’s first-hand experience along Europe’s refugee route in 2015–16, where she met highly skilled individuals trapped by invisible barriers to work. Today, Equal Reach delivers AI, design, marketing, administration and digital services to clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500s.
Equal Reach was first introduced to the Foundation as an IGNITE 2024 finalist, where it placed third. In 2025, the Foundation backed Giselle and her team with a £250,000 social investment to scale the model. Over the course of the year, Equal Reach delivered work across four regions, Uganda, Kenya, Palestine and Ukraine, supporting the creation of 55 new paid roles and bringing the total jobs created to over 100. The team grew to 12 core staff, building the operational, safeguarding and impact-reporting infrastructure needed for safe, accountable delivery at scale. They
also secured their first Fortune 500 contract to pilot inclusive employment, alongside ongoing engagement with Amazon, Santander, UNHCR, the Jobtech Alliance and the International Trade Centre.
Equal Reach is offering a new model for what refugee economic inclusion can look like and one that competes on commercial quality as well as values. A client satisfaction score of 9.7 out of 10 and a talent pool of more than 1,400 professionals point to the strength of the approach.
Through media features, speaking engagements and advocacy work, Equal Reach is also contributing to the wider conversation around refugee economic inclusion across both impact and privatesector audiences. As the model matures, the venture is becoming a credible bridge between displaced talent and global enterprise.
“When you are displaced, it doesn’t mean that this is the end of your journey. It might just be the start of your journey. Personally, at some point I lost hope. But look at where I am now. I have acquired many skills and I’m now working internationally—which I didn’t expect would happen in the near future. So what I can tell the refugees is look for these opportunities!”
Jaques
55 JOBS CREATED
16 PROJECTS DELIVERED
24 DISPLACED TALENT
24 FEMALE TALENT
1 FORTUNE 500 CONTRACT
12 PEOPLE EMPLOYED
DAYO
BUILDING THE SYSTEM THAT BACKS BLACK TALENT
Co-founded by Dr George Obolo, the Black Excellence Network is one of the UK’s leading networks for Black heritage talent in higher education and early careers, connecting over 10,000 members across 40+ universities with career opportunities, mentorship and community. The network’s activities span large-scale conferences, employer partnerships and tailored programmes designed to equip Black students and graduates to thrive in industries where representation remains disproportionately low.
In early 2025, the Foundation backed BEN with a £250,000 social investment. The capital supports two parallel ambitions: deepening BEN’s established community programmes, and building Dayo a new AI-powered platform that scales the access to career support BEN has been delivering offline.
Across the year, the Black Excellence Network delivered measurable outputs across education, early careers and access to opportunity. The flagship community event Black X, run in partnership with the University of Manchester, engaged 120+ participants, 10 expert speakers and nine masterclasses. Throughout 2025, BEN supported its growing membership with targeted attainment support, mentoring, employability training and employer engagement working alongside partners including Morgan Stanley, Slaughter
and May and the Department for Education to build tangible pathways into professional sectors where representation remains disproportionately low.
Dayo is the Black Excellence Network’s technology platform, built to extend career support and connection beyond graduation to improve long-term outcomes for Black talent. Using AI-powered matching, it pairs graduates with industry mentors, peers and supporters for short, high-impact conversations based on shared interests, goals and lived experiences built to boost social equity. Across 2025, Dayo progressed from concept into early delivery, with the platform built, initial live user journeys completed and structured user feedback captured. In September 2026, Dayo launches its first institutional pilot in partnership with the University of Manchester, with the next phase focused on refining the matching model, shortening time-to-match, deepening university partnerships and strengthening impact measurement around confidence, access and progression.
10,000 BLACK STUDENTS SUPPORTED BY BEN
2,000+ MEMBERS SUPPORTED
40+ UK UNIVERSITIES
120+ BLACK X CONFERENCE ATTENDEES
9 MASTERCLASSES DELIVERED
1 TECH PLATFORM
Grant | £285,000 2023
ALLEVIATING FOOD POVERTY
Founded
in 2014 by Duncan Swainsbury, Bounceback Food CIC is a Manchester-based social enterprise tackling food poverty and food waste through meal distribution, catering and community education. The model is built on a ‘buy one, give one’ approach, every meal sold funds a free, nutritious meal for someone facing food insecurity.
The Foundation began backing Bounceback in 2023 with a grant that has unlocked scalable growth for the social enterprise. With that funding, Duncan and his team of Community Chefs have opened two permanent Community Kitchens, Altrincham in July 2023 and Manchester city centre in January 2025, significantly increasing the venture’s social impact capacity.
Across 2025, Bounceback delivered over 30,000 nutritious hot meals to people experiencing food insecurity through 21 charity and community partners across the North West, alongside 353 hours of
community cooking classes run in partnership with housing associations, Centrepoint and frontline organisations. The team employed nine people during the year, including two paid internships, scaled the catering operation to accommodate bookings of up to 150 people, released its fourth fundraising cookbook Yes Chef and developed new workshops specifically for people living with heart disease.
Cumulatively, Bounceback has now donated over 250,000 meals and taught over 10,000 beneficiaries how to cook through workshops and learning programmes. Outreach in 2025
extended beyond the North West into Essex, Lancaster, Barnsley, Bradford, Birmingham and Sheffield with active development now underway towards a footprint in the UK’s twenty largest cities. The organisation’s work has received national recognition in The Telegraph, ITV and The Big Issue, and Duncan has delivered a TEDx talk about the pioneering use of the ‘buy one, give one’ model in the domestic context.
“I just wanted to say how much the interns and myself have enjoyed the sessions so far. The interns have been chatting more and are keen to talk about what they did when we return to DISC. Please pass on my thanks to Grant & Billy as well for their excellent cheffing skills.’”
Jonathan DISC Team Leader
30,000 MEALS PROVIDED
21 CHARITY PARTNERS SUPPORTED
140 COMMUNITY COOKERY CLASSES
10,000 PEOPLE TAUGHT TO COOK
9 PEOPLE EMPLOYED
2 PERMANENT COMMUNITY KITCHENS
Grant | £20,000 in 2025 match-funded by The Rigby Foundation
TELLING THEIR STORIES, THEIR WAY
Founded in 2016 by Zakia Moulaoui, Invisible Cities is a Community Interest Company that trains people with lived experience of homelessness to become professional walking tour guides and pays them as a living wage employer. The model creates dignified, paid employment for individuals who have often been excluded from mainstream labour markets, while offering visitors a perspective on UK cities they could not get from any other tour operator: stories of place told by the people who know it most intimately, in the words they choose.
Invisible Cities was awarded a £10,000 grant by the Foundation in 2025, match-funded pound-for-pound by The Rigby Foundation, to support the venture’s national expansion. The Foundation has further committed to match fund an additional £25,000 to support the next phase of growth scaling to ten cities across the UK.
In March 2025, Invisible Cities entered a partnership with The Royal Foundation’s Homewards initiative the five-year, six location programme led by Prince William to tackle homelessness across the UK. Prince William personally launched Invisible Cities Aberdeen, joining the first walking tour led by guide Angus before meeting the newly trained guides. Aberdeen is the first of six Homewards locations rolling out Invisible Cities tours, alongside Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Lambeth, Sheffield, Newport and Northern Ireland. Across 2025, Invisible Cities expanded to operate in eight UK cities, with two more launching in 2026 to reach a ten-city
UK target. The team trained five new guides during the year, in Edinburgh, Liverpool and the Scottish Borders, and brought on a new Operations Manager to support the growing operation.
Invisible Cities’ combination of social impact and travel-industry credibility has earned wide recognition. Invisible Cities holds a Lonely Planet Best in Travel listing, an Arival Spotlight Innovation Award and a Tourism Innovation Award, with founder Zakia named National Geographic Traveller of the Year in 2024. Alongside The Royal Foundation and the Foundation, partners and funders include the UnTours Foundation’s Reset Tourism Fund.
8 UK CITIES OPERATING IN
2 NEW CITIES LAUNCHING IN 2026
5 NEW GUIDES TRAINED IN 2025
4 WEEK GUIDE TRAINING PROGRAMME
98% OF TOUR PARTICIPANTS LEAVE WITH A CHANGED VIEW OF HOMELESSNESS
10th ANNIVERSARY, OCTOBER 2026
COMMUNITY SAVINGS Grant | £50,000 in 2025
A SAFETY NET FOR FAMILIES AND INDIVIDUALS FACING FINANCIAL EXCLUSION
Community Savings is a Jersey-based charity dedicated to financial inclusion, supporting individuals and families navigating challenging life circumstances who would otherwise be excluded from mainstream financial services.
The charity provides free, confidential and practical support to people facing ill-health, domestic abuse, relationship breakdown, redundancy and caring responsibilities, working to help them regain stability, dignity and independence. Since its establishment, Community Savings has supported over 3,000 individuals through a combination of basic and savings accounts, budgeting support, financial mentoring, and emergency assistance delivered through interest-free loans and grants.
In 2025, the Foundation awarded Community Savings a £50,000 grant to support both frontline delivery and organisational resilience. As part of this funding, the
Foundation established the Ford Family Fund: a dedicated emergency fund held within Community Savings, designed to provide timely, practical support to individuals and families facing acute financial pressure or moments of significant personal transition.
In the final quarter of 2025, the Ford Family Fund made its first six grants, deploying £2,512.44 to households in moments of acute need. These included essential household items for a single mother rebuilding her life following domestic abuse; support for a single mother of three experiencing financial hardship following divorce; practical help for an individual with additional needs to maintain independence and daily living
“The support received through the Ford Family Foundation has been truly transformative. By enabling us to provide targeted emergency grants, we have been able to step in at the moments that matter most, helping families and individuals to navigate urgent financial pressures and regain stability in their daily lives. At the same time, thanks to the Foundation, the investment in our IT upgrade has delivered a more secure and resilient operating platform, thus enabling us to strengthen our ability to respond efficiently and effectively, ensuring that help reaches those who need it most, when they need it most. This funding has not only addressed immediate challenges but has also built a stronger foundation for lasting impact across our community.”
Stephen Reilly CEO, Community Savings
routines; and short-term assistance with essential living costs for a parent supporting a child through specialist hospital treatment. Modest in scale, these interventions stabilised households at critical moments reducing immediate financial pressure while protecting dignity and independence.
Alongside the Fund, the grant supported a critical IT upgrade for Community Savings, enabling the charity to modernise its operational infrastructure. The investment has funded the migration of operations to SharePoint, the rollout of new laptops for staff, and improvements to data security and internal collaboration strengthening
the charity’s organisational resilience and its capacity to deliver high-quality services to those who depend on it.
By combining immediate, life-changing support with longer-term investment in organisational sustainability, the Foundation has helped Community Savings expand its public benefit at a moment when demand for the charity’s work is rising sharply across Jersey.
Grant | £50,000 in 2025
A MENTAL HEALTH CHAMPION IN EVERY RUGBY CLUBHOUSE
Founded in 2017 by Rob Shotton, Mark Shotton and Dave Nicoll, LooseHeadz is a UK charity on a mission to place a mental health champion in every rugby club around the world. The model combines online and in-person CPD-accredited training, rugby-specific workshops, a 24/7 text line that connects users to a trained operator within 15 minutes, and a goldstandard clinical pathway for individuals in acute need.
In 2025, the Foundation awarded LooseHeadz a £50,000 grant, primarily to continue and expand the gold-standard clinical support service the part of the model that reaches people in the most acute crisis. Across the
year, LooseHeadz supported a global network of 1,380 rugby clubs across 37 countries, training over 1,900 individuals through CPD-accredited mental health workshops alongside successful pilots of rugby-specific in-person programmes in community and university settings.
The Foundation’s grant directly enabled 20 individuals across four clubs to access specialist mental health treatment through the LooseHeadz clinical pathway in 2025. Average waiting times were dramatically reduced compared to NHS routes, users contacted within 48 hours and entering treatment within days rather than months and clinical outcomes were strong, with participants showing significant reductions in depression and anxiety scores, moving from moderate to mild ranges and meeting NHS recovery criteria.
In June 2025, LooseHeadz also broke two Guinness World Records, in partnership with children’s charity Wooden Spoon. At Mullingar RFC in Ireland, the women’s squad played 26 hours 33 minutes of continuous rugby and the men’s squad played 34 hours 48 minutes — raising over £100,000 to extend the charity’s
delivery programme to more clubs across the grassroots community.
2025 Impact
1380
RUGBY CLUBS SUPPORTED
37 COUNTRIES SIGNED UP
1900+ TRAINED IN CPDACCREDITED MENTAL HEALTH
151 RECEIVED YOUTH-SPECIFIC TRAINING
20 INDIVIDUALS RECEIVED SPECIALIST CLINICAL CARE
48 HOUR RESPONSE TIME (VS. MONTHS ON NHS WAITING LISTS)
Grant | £24,000 in 2025
WHERE DIGNITY IS THE WELCOME
Refugee Support Europe (RSE) operates the Dignity Centre Nicosia, a welcoming community space in Cyprus where people seeking sanctuary can access practical, dignityfirst support. Since opening in 2019, the Centre has supported more than 30,000 refugees and people seeking asylum, offering an alternative welcome rooted in dignity, solidarity and community.
At the heart of the Centre is the Dignity Market, where members shop for food and hygiene items in the same way they would in any store, preserving choice and agency at a moment when both are usually stripped away. Alongside it, the Helpdesk offers one-to-one guidance and signposting, helping members navigate unfamiliar systems, access their rights and take the next step. Both services are housed within a welcoming community space, supported by local and international volunteers.
In 2025, the Foundation awarded RSE a £24,000 grant to strengthen core capacity by sustaining a two-Coordinator model, a structural investment in the operational resilience the team needed to weather a year of unprecedented demand. As other organisations on the island reduced services or closed altogether, RSE has become one of the few remaining, trusted points of support for people seeking sanctuary in Cyprus.
“I was forced to leave my country because of the war. But I found you to be another homeland full of humanity and love.”
Refugee Support Europe member
Across 2025, the Helpdesk supported 4,291 cases, an increase of over 135% on 2024, with sharp rises across multiple support areas, including a 117% increase in labour card assistance, 50% growth in bank account support, and a 100% increase in CV creation requests. The organisation introduced new services in response to emerging need, including ebanking and tax number registration. Alongside this, the Dignity Market continued to support around 150 people each week, providing essential food and hygiene items for up to eight weeks at a time.
Impact
4291 HELPDESK CASES IN 2025
7800 DIGNITY MARKET CLIENT VISITS IN 2025
150 PEOPLE SUPPORTED PER WEEK
110 BLANKETS DISTRIBUTED DURING COLD WEATHER
117% YOY GROWTH IN LABOUR CARD ASSISTANCE
2 COORDINATOR MODEL SUSTAINED
TAKA TAKA ZERO Grant | £30,000 in 2023
A STUDENT IDEA, SCALED INTO A COMMUNITY BUSINESS
Taka Taka Zero, Swahili for Zero Waste, began as an Enactusled student project at Durham University and became one of the Foundation’s early grant recipients in 2024. Founded by Priyanka Doshi, the project works in partnership with a slum community in Nairobi, addressing environmental degradation, food insecurity and economic exclusion.
The Foundation awarded Taka Taka Zero a £30,000 grant in 2024, providing the early-stage capital. Following this support, Taka Taka Zero went on to expand their provision in Nairobi, reaching financial sustainability and to gain recognition at the Enactus International Finals. At its core, Taka Taka Zero transforms waste into value. By establishing effective waste removal and management systems within the community, the project has improved sanitation and living conditions and secured paid waste removal contracts creating a reliable income stream and laying the foundations for long-term financial sustainability. Across 2025, the project diverted 160 tonnes of CO2 from landfill
and grew its team to 30 paid local employees, predominantly young people from the community itself.
In 2025, Taka Taka Zero expanded into food production and micro enterprise opening a community bakery stall, selling baked goods, tea and breakfast items to local residents — generating regular trading income, increasing local food access, and contributing to the project’s transition to self-sustaining operation. The project maintained a strong social mission: continuing its partnership with a local school to provide 300 free meals to pupils each day, working closely with the headteacher to grow and supply fresh produce, and improving food quality and child wellbeing in the process.
The model’s success has begun to attract wider interest. A second community is now seeking to pilot the approach, with plans underway to raise funds for a community cooker to replicate the waste-to-enterprise model. The project is also exploring artisan products for local and tourist markets strengthening profitability while creating new entrepreneurial opportunities for community members.
1 COMMUNITY BAKERY STALL OPENED
12,000+ SCHOOL MEALS PROVIDED
300 CHILDREN FED DAILY THROUGH SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP
2 COMMUNITY SITES
“The financial support has been crucial, allowing us to make key investments in our business, such as renting a kiosk and preparing to expand. The Ford Family Foundation has been there for us every step of the way.”
Priyanka Doshi
TAKA TAKA ZERO
30 PAID LOCAL EMPLOYEES
160 TONNES OF CO2 DIVERTED
OUR UNIVERSITY IMPACT
Since its inception, the Ford Family Foundation has sought to support the vital role universities play in education, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. Our approach has been to form meaningful, long-term partnerships with higher education institutions to identify emerging talent, strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems, and invest in social ventures with national and global potential.
In 2025, our work in this space went well beyond capital. The Foundation invested £730,000 directly into early-stage social ventures founded by students and graduates from UK universities, and contributed over 500 hours of direct engagement to the wider sector through events, judging panels, advisory boards, curriculum input, mentoring, one-to-one founder support, and our flagship competition, IGNITE. Since 2023, we have backed social ventures founded out of 13 UK universities, with IGNITE alone engaging more than 50 institutions in 2025.
Our reach spans the breadth of UK higher education: Russell Group institutions, Post-92 and modern universities, specialist institutions and FE/HE colleges. Many of the ventures featured in this report came to us directly through university partners: Bounceback Food CIC through Manchester’s Venture Further Awards; Real Direction via the University of Wolverhampton; the Black Excellence Network following a showcase at Manchester; and Taka Taka Zero through Durham University’s Enactus programme. Our partnership with Durham University Venture Lab has been particularly significant in co-designing IGNITE ensuring the competition is rooted in the real challenges faced by university-affiliated mission-driven founders.
“IGNITE has been a major milestone in my business journey with AIBŌ. It has given me a bold confidence that has guided my decisions and opened up an invaluable network, which has no doubt driven AIBŌ’s growth. Thanks to IGNITE, I’m currently in investor discussions and have been welcomed into what really feels like a family, with a fire to drive social entrepreneurship.”
Solene
AIBŌ
Increasingly, universities engage with the Foundation not solely as a funder, but as a strategic partner able to bridge academia, social enterprise and impact investment. The value universities derive from the partnership reflects this including access to external investment for spin-outs, enhanced employability and skills outcomes for students and graduates, contribution to KEF and impact agendas, and strengthened links between academia, social enterprise and the wider economy.
While applications come from across the UK system, the data shows particularly strong engagement from Post-92 and modern universities, with funded ventures predominantly emerging from these institutions. This pattern reinforces the Foundation’s commitment to equitable access to early-stage capital backing highpotential social entrepreneurs regardless of institutional prestige, and intentionally supporting talent often underserved by traditional funding pathways.
IGNITE FROM IDEA TO IMPACT
IGNITE FROM IDEA TO IMPACT
A national platform for student and graduate social entrepreneurs. IGNITE is the Ford Family Foundation’s flagship programme for student and graduate social entrepreneurs, and the route through which we have backed twelve early-stage social ventures since the programme launched in 2024. Co-created with Durham University Venture Lab, IGNITE addresses persistent gaps in early-stage funding, skills and networks for university-founded ventures, providing a national platform for emerging founders using entrepreneurship to tackle social challenges.
The programme is intentionally designed to deliver public benefit at every stage, not solely at the point of funding. From open application through shortlist to live final, every participant gains access to learning opportunities, structured mentoring, pitching experience and constructive feedback helping founders build confidence, sharpen their ideas and develop viable pathways to impact, regardless of whether they progress to the final stage.
The Foundation contributes directly to the programme as well as funding it. Trustees and senior advisors take part in selection and semi-final pitch panels, and provide curated support to each finalist, offering strategy meetings, financial modelling, business expertise, and access to networks and connections. This hands-on involvement reflects our commitment to backing founders with both capital and the senior expertise that early-stage ventures most need. Our goal is for the social ventures we back
to succeed both within and beyond the university ecosystem. That means putting the right support in place at the right time, and drawing on the highly skilled, experienced senior members of our network to add value where it matters most.
Looking ahead, our ambition is to grow IGNITE in three directions: extending its reach to more universities and more founders; deepening partner involvement across the ecosystem to bring in additional capital; and building an IGNITE Fellowship to provide sustained post-programme support, reinforcing the long-term sustainability of the ventures we back.
50+ UK UNIVERSITIES ENGAGED
£280K IN FURTHER FOLLOW-ON CAPITAL DEPLOYED
130+ FUNDING APPLICATIONS RECEIVED
12 SOCIAL VENTURES SUPPORTED
£125,000 PRIZE FUNDING
£800K IN INVESTMENT OFFERED
100+ HOURS OF STRUCTURED MENTORING PER COHORT
100% VENTURES STILL IN OPERATION
55% FEMALE FOUNDED FINALIST
9 SDGS SUPPORTED
“What began as a simple idea, sketched out while juggling ward rounds as a medical student, has transformed into a working, real-world tool that is already being used by healthcare professionals on the frontline. None of this would have been possible without IGNITE and the support of the Ford Family Foundation — the funding, yes, but more importantly, the belief, the space to explore, and the people who helped shape what Medily has become.”
Talha Mehmood MEDILY AI (IGNITE 2024 Winner)
ENTREPRENEURS CHANGING THE WORLD
IGNITE 2025 brought together six outstanding social ventures for a national final, held at the Barclays Innovation Hub in Shoreditch. Selected from 70 applications across 50 UK universities, the finalists pitched for a £50,000 prize fund with grants awarded from first to sixth place addressing pressing social challenges across health, accessibility, education, inclusion and technology for good.
The 2025 round marked the arrival of Barclays Eagle Labs as IGNITE’s first Innovation Partner, a partnership that strengthened the programme’s national profile and the support offer made to founders. Finalists gained direct access to an Eagle Labs Ecosystem Manager, the national Eagle Labs community, digital resources, and connections into relevant investor and corporate networks. Wraparound support was deepened further by personalised 1:1 coaching from Capital Enterprise, and at least one dedicated advisory and strategy session with members of the Foundation Board.
The final was judged by a panel bringing together expertise across social enterprise, investment, higher education, technology and lived experience. Their insight and rigour played a critical role in ensuring that funding decisions were robust and aligned with the Foundation’s commitment to ventures with both strong impact potential and commercial sustainability.
Beyond the prize fund, the IGNITE final embodies the Foundation’s two-tier approach — combining direct support to the winning ventures with broader benefit to the universities, partners and ecosystem that surround them. Connections made through the programme and at the event have already led to follow-on pitch wins, additional funding conversations, client introductions and strategic partnerships for several finalists. For the universities represented in the cohort, the final offered a national showcase for their founders, generated material for impact and knowledge exchange reporting, and opened new pathways for ongoing engagement with the IGNITE network.
FINALIST
“The organisation benefited from expert mentorship, gaining valuable guidance and support from Iain and Tony, which contributed to overall growth and development.”
Gracie Broom Founder, Reporti
IGNITE 2025 WINNERS
The IGNITE 2025 live final was held at Barclays Innovation Hub, Shoreditch, where we welcomed six ventures to pitch. The event was once again oversubscribed, attracting guests from across higher education, entrepreneurship, finance, social impact, investment and media. The evening featured exceptional pitches followed by judges Q&A, a fireside chat and guest speakers, providing a celebration of entrepreneurship and earlystage innovation.
1st
£20,000
This year’s winner, AIBŌ, is a platform matching university students with older people for intergenerational companionship. The model tackles social isolation in later life as a growing wellbeing challenge in an ageing society while creating accessible, meaningful work for students, and building sustained relationships across generations.
2nd
£10,000
WeDonate is a digital platform aimed at increasing blood donation by incentivising and simplifying donor engagement. By partnering with ethical brands and organisations, WeDonate seeks to address critical shortages in blood supply while promoting sustained donor participation.
3rd 4th 5th 6th
£4,000
JAMES BARBER
Harker is an AI-enabled software platform to help homelessness charities and social sector organisations make better use of their data and enabling more effective support for people experiencing homelessness. Harker’s mission is to support service delivery and decision-making within the homelessness sector by improving how data is used to understand needs and outcomes.
£7,500 £6,000
Reporti is building technology to improve transparency, reporting and accountability within organisations. The platform enables clearer data capture and communication, supporting better decision-making and helping organisations evidence impact and compliance more effectively.
Rephobia is tackling stigma and misinformation around phobias and anxietyrelated conditions. Through education, digital tools and community engagement, the venture aims to improve understanding, access to support and long-term outcomes for people affected by anxiety disorders.
£2,500
JONNY PARKER
Braille Forge develops tactile and braillebased learning tools for blind and visually impaired people, responding to persistent shortages of accessible educational materials. The venture designs and produces physical resources that support STEM, literacy, learning and creative engagement, with applications across schools, higher education and community settings to increase access to high-quality accessible resources.
Special Impact Award
£20,000
£10,000 MATCH FUNDED BY THE RIGBY FOUNDATION
Invisible Cities is a CIC that trains people with lived experience of homelessness to become walking tour guides. The Ford Family Foundation awarded £10,000 to support Invisible Cities’ expansion to ten UK cities. This grant was match funded by The Rigby Foundation, with the Ford Family Foundation committing to match fund a further £25,000 to support continued growth and scale.
ACCOUNTING FOR SOCIAL VALUE
As the Foundation has grown in scale, reach and complexity, so has our responsibility to evidence the public benefit created through our funding, partnerships and support. In 2025, we began the work of moving beyond activity and outputs towards a clearer, more honest understanding of what has changed as a direct result of the Foundation’s intervention, and for whom.
This work has been developed in partnership with Profit for Purpose and is grounded in established Social Accounting principles. The Foundation completed a Social Value Audit, mapped its direct stakeholder groups, articulated a formal Theory of Change across grant-making, social investment and the IGNITE programme, and developed a set of Key Value Indicators against which future change will be measured.
Our Social Value Statement
“Ford Family Foundation investments provide patient capital, expertise and guidance to build innovative and sustainable business models that enhance public benefit. Our support has generated new employment opportunities, established UK-wide networks, and enabled the introduction of new products and services in health and education that have benefited some of the most disadvantaged communities throughout the UK, Europe and Africa.”
The framework is built on a Theory of Change that follows a clear sequence across Outcome, Impact, and Value and recognises three direct stakeholder groups: the social ventures and charities we fund, the universities we partner with, and the Foundation itself.
Across these groups, the framework will measure change against five Key Value Indicators: Skills and Employability, Volunteering, Public and Community Engagement, Growth and Regeneration and Innovation for Social Good. Each indicator pairs quantitative and qualitative measurement including Social Return on Investment (SROI), Local Multiplier (LM3) analysis, wellbeing case studies and trust network mapping. The framework also aligns with three established external standards: the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), the UK Government’s Procurement Policy Note (PPN 06/20) Social Value Framework, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
In 2026, the Foundation will pilot the full framework across IGNITE and the main grants pathway strengthening accountability, sharpening decision-making, and contributing evidence-based learning to the wider philanthropic and social investment sectors.
Creating social enterprise, enabling long term social changes
LOOKING FORWARD TO 2026
LOOKING FORWARD TO 2026
Five years in, the Foundation is at the start of its most ambitious chapter yet. Our commitment to put capital where it is needed most has built a portfolio of twenty-seven ventures, a flagship programme reaching across UK higher education, and a network of partners working at every layer of the social impact ecosystem. Our ambition is to back the people building a fairer, more equitable society —at a scale and depth that matches the size of the challenge. 2026 will see that ambition stretch further: scaling our social investment portfolio, growing IGNITE, deepening the ecosystem we have built, and beginning to formally measure the public benefit of our work.
In 2026, the Foundation will continue to deploy patient, flexible capital across the UK and beyond making new social investments in early-stage, mission-led ventures, and providing follow-on support to scale the impact of the organisations already in our portfolio. Our priority remains the same: backing founders prepared to disrupt and drive meaningful, systemic change, with the kind of long-term, hands-on support that creates the conditions for them to succeed.
Growing IGNITE. IGNITE enters its third year in 2026 with the intention of growing both reach and ambition. IGNITE Round 3 will extend the competition’s national footprint, deepen the support we offer firsttime founders, and welcome new partners across the higher education, investment and corporate ecosystem. We intend to launch the IGNITE Accelerator and Fellowship, providing rigorous, sustained pre and post-competition support to applicants and alumni founders, catalysing more entrepreneurs, reinforcing the long-term sustainability of the ventures we back, and turning IGNITE from an annual moment into a continuing community.
Building the ecosystem. Throughout 2026, we will continue to strengthen our role as a trusted partner to universities, delivery organisations and fellow funders recognising that convening, shared learning and longterm relationships are central to achieving systemic change. The Innovation Partnership
with Barclays Eagle Labs continues to expand and we encourage others to join us on this journey to drive social change at scale.
Evidencing the impact. We will move our Social Value Accounting work from framework design into full piloting and implementation, in partnership with Profit for Purpose. The introduction of a digital measurement system will support more efficient data collection, improved transparency and stronger decisionmaking and allow us to attribute value rigorously across the founders, universities and partners we work with.
This is the first impact report we have published for a public audience. It will not be the last. As the Foundation looks forward, we remain committed to learning, reflection and continuous improvement and to combining financial support with expertise to ensure that the Ford Family Foundation continues to deliver meaningful, measurable and lasting public benefit for generations to come.
We will continue to strengthen our role as a trusted partner to universities, delivery organisations and ecosystem collaborators
WITH THANKS
2025 has been a significant year for the Ford Family Foundation, made possible by the contribution of many. We extend our thanks to all the people and organisations who gave their time, trust and expertise during the year.
To the founders we back, whose courage, resilience and ambition are at the heart of everything we do, whose work is the impact this report celebrates and who makes our impact possible.
To the universities and university partners whose role in developing talent, conducting research and supporting the next generation of social entrepreneurs continues to inspire and shape our work.
To the contributors to IGNITE our judging panel, our mentors, our Innovation Partner Barclays Eagle Labs, and our coaching and ecosystem partners Capital Enterprise, Cambio Consultancy, Mathys & Squire and Ground+Air.
To our co-funders and match-funding partners particularly The Royal Foundation and The Rigby Foundation whose collaboration
extends the reach and depth of our work far beyond what we could achieve alone.
To Profit for Purpose, for the rigour and partnership behind our Social Value framework.
To the delivery and frontline organisations working alongside our funded ventures across the UK and internationally.
To our Trustees and Advisors, for their wisdom, governance and steadfast belief in the progressive path we have taken.
And above all, to the Ford Family, whose generosity, vision and unwavering belief in the power of entrepreneurship to create lasting change make all of this possible and continue to build a legacy that will inspire for generations to come.
CREATING IMPACT THAT CAN BE SEEN, MEASURED AND SUSTAINED.
In 2025, the Foundation laid the groundwork for a new era of Social Value measurement — helping ensure that the change created through our funding, partnerships and programmes is evidenced with clarity, accountability and long-term purpose.
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