Place-based philanthropy – lessons from 25 years of the London Mayoralty

Wednesday 11th June 2025 by John Griffiths

Reflecting on 25 years of the London Mayoralty

The largely favourable assessments of London’s Mayoralty which have marked the 25th anniversary of the restoration of London’s regional tier of government, overlooked that the three Mayors in that time presided over the capital’s increasing polarisation of wealth.  According to the latest Sunday Times Rich List, London is now home to 227,000 millionaires (a 3.8% increase on 2024).  Over sixty percent of London’s wealth is owned by the richest 10% of households; the bottom 50% own just 4 per cent. Yet, perversely, research by Charities Aid Foundation reveals that the 10 least generous areas in the UK are all affluent districts in London. 

The capital’s increasing wealth divide is one of the greatest risks to its social integration and continued economic success, including the current Mayor’s vision of “good growth.”

As part of the new Labour government’s Plan for Change, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has announced the preparation of a place-based philanthropy strategy. Her department has committed to “exploring how the government can create an environment to encourage philanthropists to support local communities across the country, reaching areas that need it most.” The ideas of establishing local Philanthropy Champions and of Diaspora Giving Networks, were mooted in the Kruger Review (2020) and explored further in the Law Family Commission on Civil Society (2023).  There are also lessons that DCMS could learn from London’s recent efforts to harness greater amounts of civic philanthropy, and from one of the capital’s three Mayors in particular. 

Boris Johnson’s mayoralty (2008-2016) was marked by a distinctive attempt to incorporate philanthropic mechanisms into the governance of London, influenced heavily by the policies of former New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. Inspired by Bloomberg’s use of private wealth and corporate partnerships to achieve public outcomes, Johnson imported a trio of initiatives which attempted to embed a similar US-style culture of civic giving in the UK’s capital: the Mayor’s Fund for London, Team London, and the Foundation for Future London. As part of the reflection on 25 years of the Mayoralty as a force for good, this blog assesses the impact and legacy of these efforts in the context of London’s current funding challenges.

The Mayor’s Fund for London

Founded in 2008 as an independent social mobility charity, the Mayor’s Fund for London was designed to mobilise private resources in support of disadvantaged young Londoners. Johnson served as the Fund’s patron, but did not personally donate to it; a contrast to Mayor Bloomberg’s hands-on financial support for similar initiatives in New York. 

Despite being legally independent, the Fund’s identity remained closely tied to the Mayor’s office. This dual status created both reputational advantages and political vulnerabilities. The Fund proved effective in leveraging resources from certain corporate donors, including Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Berkeley Foundation, for initiatives such as Kitchen Social, which tackle school holiday hunger. However, its dependence on the perceived support of the Mayor compromised its independence, not least during transitions in mayoral leadership and also caused confusion when the charity strayed into social policy areas which were the domain of the Mayor’s statutory body, the Greater London Authority.   

Team London and Civic Participation

Team London, which was modelled on the US Cities of Service (another Bloomberg-backed initiative), evolved out of the London Ambassadors volunteer programme originally designed for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It subsequently became a vehicle for engaging Londoners and corporate partners in high-impact volunteering, brokering relationships between civil society organisations and businesses through platforms such as Skill-UP and Careers Clusters which supported a range of education and employment initiatives. It complemented the broader goals of the GLA’s “Good Work” agenda by promoting employer-supported volunteering and embedding social value in corporate activities. However, the GLA has lacked a cohesive civil society strategy, which may otherwise have capitalised on Team London’s potential, resulting in fragmented efforts across different departments.

The Foundation for Future London and Cultural Philanthropy

Established in 2015 during Johnson’s final year in office, the Foundation for Future London aimed to deliver a lasting cultural and economic legacy at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Its mission was to raise considerable sums from High-Net-Worth Individuals and corporate donors to support East Bank, a new educational and cultural district featuring institutions such as Sadlers Wells, V&A East, and University College London.

The Foundation was initially tasked with raising £89 million in private capital, a target modelled on US philanthropic practices. However, the UK’s fiscal and cultural environment proved less conducive to high-net-worth philanthropy; the Foundation was never adequately staffed or resourced for such an ambitious goal. Its failure to meet expectations initially damaged relationships with East Bank partners and contributed to a perception of mismanagement, compelling the organisation to reinvent itself in order to survive.

The Foundation subsequently secured a landmark agreement in 2020 to deliver the Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund, a £10 million corporate grant to fund employment, skills, and cultural activities in East London. Whilst this has helped to reposition the Foundation as a local grant maker and agent of place-based development, tensions remained, not least with the London Legacy Development Corporation, which retained financial and governance entanglements with the Foundation, leading to confusion over the organisations’ respective roles and remits. 

Reflections and Challenges

Boris Johnson’s philanthropic ventures showed his ideological leaning toward the use of private initiative for public good, harking back to traditional forms of philanthropy whilst mirroring more modern, American models of engagement. In a nod to Prince Albert, and the perceived golden age of Victorian civic philanthropy, Johnson even wanted to call what is now East Bank, “Olympicopolis.”  However, this approach encountered several challenges in London. 

The UK lacks tax incentives which support US-style philanthropy, and public expectations of the state’s role in social provision still remain fundamentally different. The ambitious goals of the Foundation for Future London, in particular, underestimated the complexities of inter-agency governance and the difficulties of mobilising large-scale place-based giving without dedicated infrastructure. Similarly, the Mayor’s Fund’s ambiguous status highlighted the risks of blurring public and private responsibilities for social policy in the capital, and the challenges of harnessing individual and corporate philanthropy in order to address civic or statutory priorities. 

Reporting in 2016, the year Johnson left office, the London Fairness Commission also saw fit to invoke the name of a great Victorian philanthropist when it argued that it was “Time for a ‘Peabody’ Moment” . . . “time for London’s wealthiest residents and businesses to come together in an exemplary social philanthropic effort.” Nearly ten years on, and with 26% of Londoners recorded as now living in poverty, a figure of around 2.3 million people – equivalent to twice the population of Birmingham, we are still waiting.

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