Pillar 1: Community Resilience
There was a continued focus in 2025 on initiatives which support the health and wellbeing of children and young people with a wide of supports which fundamentally increase access, reduce barriers, and change how young people interact with mental health and wellbeing programmes.
Grantees included:
Dublin City University Educational Trust
Funding to support LifeLab at Dublin City University, an innovative health literacy programme designed to improve the health knowledge, choices and behaviours of young people particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Atlantic Technological University • Barnardos • Maynooth University
Supports for young people attending college.
Barnardos • ISPCC • Childrens Rights Alliance
Support for disadvantaged families and children.
Rethink Ireland 'Active Play Fund'
Support for charitable organisations working to address the issue of physical activity, mental health and overall well-being among children living in Ireland.
CFI
The Foundation continued to work with CFI to support the Immigrant community, making grant payments to organisations such as the Irish Refugee Council.
Pillar 2: Environment Sustainability
A key priority for the Foundation in 2025 was the launch of the Mayo Sustainability Fund (MSF) via Community Foundation Ireland. The MSF began development in 2023 with a UCD scoping study on the feasibility of a place-based sustainability fund in Mayo, followed by a community consultation in February 2025.
The MSF is a collaboration by Community Foundation Ireland, the Foundation as well as a number of other donors interested in supporting local initiatives and strategies to progress sustainability for Mayo communities. By September 2025, the first round of grants had been issued totalling €628,000 across 12 projects.
Other grantees in 2025 included the Community Foundation Ireland’s Biodiversity Fund - (in partnership with National Parks & Wildlife Service) which provides community groups with the resources to create ‘Community Biodiversity Action Plans’, and to implement those plans through sustained funding over a period of years.
The Foundation also maintains a strong relationship with Trinity College, supporting the Climate+ programme through funding supports for the Policy Response Unit as well as bursaries for PhD scholarships.
Pillar 3: Overseas Development
A key priority for the Foundation in 2025 was to conduct research to provide a basis for the Foundations grant making directed at improving water resources in sub-Saharan Africa. Following a research phase and the development of a coherent strategy focused on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in Africa, the Foundation launched a ‘Call for Proposals’ to identify the most impactful, effective and efficient programme for SCF to fund. This process will be finalised in 2026 when a suitable programme will be considered by the Trustees.
The Foundation also finalised its ‘Crisis Response Policy’ and responded to a number of crises by supporting charitable organisations responding to humanitarian crisis in countries such as Myanmar, Somalia and Ethiopia.