An online tool to let charities search more than 180,000 grants awarded over the past dozen years has been developed by a transparency charity, with the backing of large UK’s foundations.

The GrantNav tool is hosted by transparency charity 360Giving, found at, allows charities to search grants by location, recipient, award amount and funding organisation. It was developed with support from Esmée Fairbairn, the Indigo Trust and Nesta.

“By making a wealth of grant information available in one place GrantNav will save time and money, allowing funders to be more informed, and those seeking funding to make more targeted applications,” a statement released by 360Giving said.  

“All grants included in the online platform are published to the 360Giving standard – a shared format that makes the data available in an open and comparable way.

“To date, over £8bn of grants have been shared by a range of UK grantmakers including the Big Lottery Fund, BBC Children in Need, City Bridge Trust, Comic Relief, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Gatsby, Lloyds Bank Foundation, Paul Hamlyn and the Wolfson Foundation.

“The 360Giving data standard is also used by local and government grantmakers, including early adopters Oxfordshire Community Foundation, Macc and Trafford Council. Information from all of these funders can be found on GrantNav.

“As each new organisation opens up its data the information will become available to search and download via GrantNav; building a more complete picture of grantmaking in the UK.”