Haberdashers' Foundation

The Haberdashers' Foundation embodies centuries-old stewardship and social responsibility, empowering young people from all backgrounds to realize their potential through transformative education and community support. Rooted in values of opportunity, service, collaboration, and generational change, it drives funding decisions by raising aspirations, tackling disadvantage, and advancing social mobility via a distinctive "Funder Plus" philosophy that pairs grants with professional expertise, networks, and capacity-building to amplify charity impact and foster long-term partnerships beyond transactional support.

It prioritizes interventions for young people up to age 30 facing disadvantage, including children aged 0-5 at early years risk factors, school pupils from deprived backgrounds via enrichment activities, cultural capital programs, and extracurricular opportunities to boost educational attainment and confidence, homeless youth and those at risk of homelessness through prevention and stabilization services, and individuals with custodial experience from the criminal justice system via rehabilitation, reintegration support, mentoring, and peer networks exemplified by programs like No Going Back. Funding targets youth work addressing social exclusion, aspiration-building workshops, community outreach for at-risk families, and holistic early intervention to mitigate poverty cycles, alongside ministry and outreach in Church of England communities fostering spiritual and social resilience through local initiatives.

Exclusions encompass capital-only projects and emergency relief, focusing instead on ongoing or pilot work aligned with thematic priorities. Distinctive for its integration with the Haberdashers' Company heritage, it privileges small charities in historic communities tied to affiliated schools and churches, emphasizing trauma-informed, person-centred partnerships that leverage lived experience and Company skills for sustainable empowerment of disadvantaged youth, care leavers, and homeless young people, prioritizing evidence of deep impact on social mobility over broad interventions.