What Grant Funders Check on a Charity Website Before Awarding a Grant
Key takeaways
- Funders check the application against what is already public. The National Lottery Community Fund names "your own website" among the sources it compares an application with.
- The checks are specific: trustees named on the site and matching the register, current and dated accounts, programme pages with outcomes and geographies, registration details, a safeguarding policy where the work calls for one, and signs of recent activity.
- Only a small part of this is law. A charity over the income threshold must state its registered status on anything soliciting money, and a privacy notice is a UK GDPR requirement; the rest is funder expectation.
- When a funder cannot find your accounts they rarely ask. They read them on the Charity Commission register instead, without the narrative your own site would have carried.
- Activity reporting is not impact evidence. A funder can verify a specific, dated outcome with a stated method; it cannot verify "we transform lives".
- A site that fails these checks rarely produces a rejection letter, so fix the governance pages first when a major application is close.
Summary
Before a grant is awarded, funders compare what the application says with what is already public: the charity register, the accounts and your own website. The National Lottery Community Fund says so in writing, naming "your own website" among the sources it checks against. This post sets out what a funder checks (named trustees that match the register, current and dated accounts, programme pages with specific outcomes, registration details, safeguarding, recent activity), which of those are law and which are expectation, and what happens when the accounts cannot be found on the site at all.
The Short Answer
Grant funders check your website against your application. They look for trustees who match the Charity Commission register, current and dated accounts, programme pages with specific outcomes, a visible registered status and address, a safeguarding policy where the work needs one, and recent activity. A gap is rarely queried; it is noted.
The grant officer has your application open in one tab and your website in another. You do not know this is happening. You are preparing for the meeting, and someone with authority over a funding decision is forming a view from what your website says, and does not say, right now.
Funders Say They Check
This is not a guess about funder behaviour. At least one major UK funder writes it down. The National Lottery Community Fund's guide to the checks it does on your information says:
"All information that you provide should be accurate, up-to-date and consistent with other information you've given us or information which is in the public domain (e.g. regulatory bodies, your own website, your social media pages or other internet searches)."
Among the concerns it lists: "the numbers or the names of the people on your committee or board don't match your supporting information or information in the public domain". Its page on assessing risk adds that it will "consider the people involved in your organisation", again naming "your own website" as a source, and that "We can't give specific details about all the checks we carry out as this would reduce how effective they are."
Finances carry weight too. The Garfield Weston Foundation's application FAQs tell a charity without accounts: "please don't apply until you do as your finances are an important part of our decision making."
Other funders publish less, and I am not going to claim what a named funder checks without its own words. What follows is the list those two statements imply, and the parts beyond them are marked as good practice.
The public reads charities the same way, and there is research on that. The Charity Commission's 2026 research into public trust, published on 8 July 2026, found that money reaching the end cause remains the most important driver of trust, and that 57% of people report high trust in charities. BBB's Donor Trust Report 2026, a survey of more than 1,500 US adults, found participants most influenced by charities' websites (54%), ahead of third-party monitors (39%). Neither measures programme officers. The point holds more sharply for one, because they are paid to check what the public only wonders about.
Institutional and government funders check more. FCDO's SEAH due-diligence guidance for implementing partners, updated on 30 June 2026, says its assessments look at five pillars: governance and internal controls, ability to deliver, financial stability, downstream delivery and safeguarding. What a website can answer before that starts is in what an NGO's website can answer before FCDO due diligence. A US private foundation granting to a UK charity runs its own review under IRS rules, and what a UK charity's website should show US funders covers what that review reads. If you apply to either, a single page for funders that links everything a due-diligence check will ask for saves the officer assembling it.
What They Check
Trustees and Governance
A board listing with names and roles, not a paragraph about "committed professionals". The National Lottery Community Fund's own example concern is board names that do not match the public record, so the list on your site must match the register. The expectation is written down in one other place: BBB Wise Giving Alliance Standard 17 asks any charity website soliciting contributions to carry the information recommended for annual reports, which includes the board roster. It is a US voluntary standard rather than UK law, but it tells you what a scrutineer expects to find.
Accounts and Annual Report
Annual reports and accounts should be downloadable, clearly dated and current. As good practice, I would put the latest set within two clicks of the homepage. If the most recent report on the site is years behind the register, a funder notices. If it is nowhere on the site, see the section below on what happens next.
The same goes for a case for support or a strategy summary you offer as a download: publish it as a web page as well as a PDF. A PDF alone is the version a screen reader user and a phone user both struggle with, and the argument for the web version is set out in annual report integration.
Programmes and Impact Evidence
Programme pages should say what you do, for whom, where, and with what outcomes. Funders distinguish activity from impact. How many workshops you delivered is activity. What changed for participants, against a stated measure with the method cited, is impact. The site does not need full evaluation reports, but the figures on it should be specific, dated, sourced and proportionate to the claims in the application.
Check too that the programmes on the site are the ones you are delivering now. Discontinued work still listed, or a programme described differently from the application, is exactly the inconsistency the checks above are designed to find.
Scale and Track Record
If the application describes a programme working at scale, the site should show it: history, numbers, geographies, outcomes. An application claiming a long track record beside a website that shows no trace of the work creates a gap the application cannot close.
Registration, Address and Compliance Signals
Your registered name and status, the charity number and a real registered address, not only a contact form. The National Lottery Community Fund requires that the address on your application "must be your organisation's current registered address", so the one on your site should match it.
Only a little of this is law. A charity whose gross income exceeded £10,000 must state that it is a registered charity on documents soliciting money (Charities Act 2011, section 39); the section does not mention websites, and treating a donation page as such a document is the cautious reading. A privacy notice is a UK GDPR requirement (ICO). The number in the footer and an accessibility statement are expectation. On accessibility, the Equality Act 2010 duty to make reasonable adjustments applies to services provided to the public, and the European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025 to in-scope services sold to consumers in the EU. An inaccessible site sits badly beside a mission about inclusion.
Safeguarding
For work with children or adults at risk, a visible, current safeguarding policy with a named lead is good practice. If the application says a policy is in place and the site shows none, the site has contradicted the application on the one point where a funder has least room to take it on trust.
Recent Activity
A news section untouched for a long time suggests an organisation that is either inactive or not communicating. Funders want to see that the organisation they are considering is functioning now.
The Checklist, in One Table
| Element | What good looks like | What causes concern |
|---|---|---|
| Board listing | Named trustees with roles, matching the register | Generic "our board" text, or names that differ from the register |
| Annual report and accounts | Current, dated, downloadable, easy to reach | Missing, out of date, or buried |
| Programme pages | Specific outcomes, geographies, dated figures | Aspirational language, no evidence |
| Track record | History and scale that match the application | No trace of the work the application describes |
| Leadership team | Named, with roles and short bios | Anonymous or missing |
| Registration and address | Registered status, number and registered address visible | Contact form only, no number |
| Safeguarding | Current policy and named lead, where the work needs it | Policy claimed in the application, absent from the site |
| Privacy and accessibility | Current privacy notice and accessibility statement | Missing or long out of date |
| Recent content | Recent, dated updates | Stale news, old dates |
When a Funder Cannot Find Your Accounts
Take a hypothetical case, because it does not go the way most charities assume. A programme officer opens the site looking for the latest accounts. They are not in the main navigation. Site search returns an older PDF on a page called Reports. The footer links to a Publications page that returns a 404.
The officer does not email to ask. They go to the Charity Commission register, where the accounts are filed, and read them there. You have not lost the disclosure. You have lost the framing: the accounts are now read without the impact narrative, without the explanation for a deficit year, and without the trustees' commentary your own site would have carried.
Then a second question forms, and it is not about money. If the accounts are current on the register and out of date on the website, the officer has learnt something about how the organisation maintains its own public record. That is a governance observation, and it is the kind that gets written into an assessment note rather than raised with you.
The fix is unglamorous. The current accounts and the trustees' annual report should be one click from the main navigation, dated on the page itself rather than only inside the PDF, beside the charity number and registered address. If the latest set has not been filed yet, say so with the date it is expected. A stated gap reads as control. An unexplained one reads as drift.
Why You Never Hear About It
A site that fails these checks does not produce a rejection letter that says so. The application stalls, or reaches assessment with questions attached, or does not progress, and nobody tells you the website was the reason. You cannot control what a funder thinks of your mission or your fit with their priorities. You can control whether the public record they check tells the same story as your application.
What to Fix First
Start with a structured audit: map every row of the table above against your current site. Some gaps are quick (the charity number in the footer, the latest accounts uploaded and dated). Others, such as restructuring programme pages or building a governance section, need planning.
If a major application is close, fix the governance rows first: trustees against the register, accounts, registration details and safeguarding. Then read the application beside the website, ideally with someone outside the team, and check every factual claim, every link and every document download. For how to shape the site so it actively supports an application rather than merely surviving the check, see how a website supports a grant application.
Further Reading
- Website Credibility Audit for NGOs
- Annual Report Integration for Nonprofit Website Transparency
- Charity Commission Compliance: UK Nonprofit Website Requirements
- How Your Website Supports (or Undermines) Major Donor Cultivation
What It Looks Like When the Website Holds Up
The shift is quiet. Funders arrive at meetings with fewer unanswered questions, because the public record already matches the application. The website stops being the thing you hope nobody looks at too closely and becomes something you point funders towards. That does not come from a redesign. It comes from a website that tells the truth about the organisation clearly and completely.
Two clicks. Three things.
Send the address of your website. Within two working days you get a short email naming the three things a funder would hold against it, including what AI assistants like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews currently say about you. No report, no call, no follow-up unless you ask.
Received. Your three things arrive within two working days.
That did not send. Email hello@socialectric.com with your website address and I will reply from there.
Frequently asked questions
- What do grant funders check on a charity's website before awarding a grant?
Funders compare the application with what is public. The National Lottery Community Fund, for example, says information you give it should be consistent with information in the public domain, naming regulatory bodies, your own website and your social media pages. In practice that means the trustee list against the Charity Commission register, the most recent accounts, the programme descriptions, registration details, a safeguarding policy where the work involves vulnerable people, and whether the site shows an organisation that is still active.
- How do funders use the Charity Commission register alongside the website?
The register is the independent record, so it is the obvious thing to check the website against: that the charity number is valid, that the trustees named on the site match those registered, that the accounts on the site are the most recent filed, and that the activities described match the registered purposes. The National Lottery Community Fund lists a board whose names do not match information in the public domain as one of the concerns it may have.
- What happens if a funder cannot find our accounts on the website?
They rarely contact you to ask. They go to the Charity Commission register, where the accounts are filed, and read them there without the context your own site would have provided: the impact narrative, the explanation for a deficit year, the trustees' commentary. You keep the disclosure and lose the framing.
The second effect matters more. If the accounts are current on the register and out of date on the website, that gap says something about how the organisation maintains its own public record, and it is read as a governance observation rather than a communications one.
- Which of these is a legal requirement for a UK charity website?
Very little. A charity with gross income over £10,000 must state that it is a registered charity on documents soliciting money (Charities Act 2011, section 39); the section does not mention websites, and applying it to donation pages is the cautious reading. A privacy notice is a UK GDPR requirement. Named trustees, accounts on the site, a safeguarding page and the charity number in the footer are funder expectation rather than law. The Charity Commission website requirements set out the full list.
- What is the difference between impact evidence and activity reporting?
Activity reporting states what the organisation did, such as the number of workshops delivered. Impact evidence states what changed as a result, against a stated measure, with the method cited. A funder can check the second; the first only tells them you were busy.
- Do funders expect a safeguarding policy on the website?
Where the work involves children or adults at risk, a visible, current safeguarding policy with a named lead is good practice, and its absence is hard to explain if the application says a policy exists. Linking it from the governance section means a funder does not have to ask for it.
- Can a weak website cost a charity a grant?
It can, and you are unlikely to be told. A funder who finds a gap between the application and the site does not usually write to explain; the application simply does not progress, or arrives at assessment with questions attached. That is why the fix is a systematic check against the list in this post rather than a redesign.