{"id":10,"date":"2025-01-23T12:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T12:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/micro.green-park.co.uk\/bre\/?page_id=10"},"modified":"2026-07-07T13:11:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:11:31","slug":"about-us","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/micro.green-park.co.uk\/city-guilds-foundation\/about-us\/","title":{"rendered":"About us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\t\t About Us \u2013 City & Guilds Foundation\t <\/h1>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n
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The City and Guilds of London Institute (CGLI) was founded in 1878 by 16 Livery Companies and has, since 1900, enjoyed Royal patronage, our current President is Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal. In November 2025, CGLI separated its activities, enabling City & Guilds Foundation, still legally CGLI, to operate as an independent charity with a clear and singular social purpose.<\/p>\n

We believe that skills are a catalyst for social and economic change. Through strategic grant making, prestigious employer recognition awards, fellowships, and bold advocacy, we champion skills and their place in society as a lever for genuine social mobility. In the last five years we have awarded \u00a35.6m in grants to frontline charities and individuals, supported 15,000 individuals with funding, and delivered \u00a323m of social return on investment.<\/p>\n

We are now entering an exciting new chapter. With a new Chair and Chief Executive in place, we are shaping the next phase of our strategy, defining our long-term vision, strengthening partnerships across education, employment and community sectors, and ensuring the Foundation is a catalyst for opportunity, innovation and inclusion in a rapidly changing world of work.<\/p>\n

Our Mission<\/h3>\n

At City & Guilds Foundation, we believe that skills are a catalyst for social and economic change. By supporting individuals, organisations, and communities, we aim to ensure that skills development leads to meaningful employment, personal growth, and stronger societies. Our work is currently organised around several key streams:<\/p>\n

Grant making and Partnerships<\/strong><\/p>\n

We focus our funding where it matters most, supporting people who face the biggest barriers to work. We do this through a blended approach of grants, social investment funding and matched donations that open up opportunities for skills and employment \u2013 these are to both individuals and organisations such as charities or CICs. Everything we do is designed to remove barriers, build confidence, and create pathways into meaningful and sustainable employment. Find out more here.<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Celebrating Best Practice<\/strong><\/p>\n

Using the power of celebration, we recognise and reward quality, excellence and outstanding results, whilst sharing best practice and inspiring change. Through an assortment of prestigious awards that honour employers, learners and tutors, and exceptional individuals, \u200bwe aim to promote the acknowledgement, appreciation and celebration of individuals and organisations who demonstrate commitment and investment in skills development. This includes our flagship awards programme, The Princess Royal Training Awards which honours employers in the UK and Ireland who have created outstanding training and skills development programmes which have resulted in exceptional commercial benefits. Other award programmes include the Fellowship programme and Membership awards. Find out more here.<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Advocating for Jobs of the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n

We champion innovation in skills and training, ensuring that individuals and employers are prepared for the changing world of work. Through our campaigns and advocacy work we want to enhance awareness around the barriers people face to accessing skills and challenge perceptions which adversely affect development opportunities for marginalised groups. Some of the work we\u2019ve done in this space includes reporting on our impact in the Prison space –\u00a0 encouraging more employers to recruit those with convictions. More recently, we established our Neurodiversity Index in response to recognising that lots of the individuals we were supporting were neurodivergent. The Index highlights areas of progress, challenges and opportunities for fostering and inclusive work environment. Find out more here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Our Impact<\/h3>\n

In delivering our goal of enhancing opportunities in skills and work, we are dedicated to ensuring that our work makes a real difference in people\u2019s lives and we are proud of the impact that our work has had to date. From helping people reintegrate into society after prison, to recognising community champions, to advocating for vocational pathways in emerging industries, our work has shown that skills are central to opportunity and inclusion. In the last five years we have awarded \u00a35.6m of grants to frontline charities and individuals and supported 15,000 individuals with funding. All our funding has delivered \u00a323m of social return on investment. We are committed to measuring our impact annually. Find out more here.<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/micro.green-park.co.uk\/city-guilds-foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/micro.green-park.co.uk\/city-guilds-foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/micro.green-park.co.uk\/city-guilds-foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micro.green-park.co.uk\/city-guilds-foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micro.green-park.co.uk\/city-guilds-foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/micro.green-park.co.uk\/city-guilds-foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"https:\/\/micro.green-park.co.uk\/city-guilds-foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/micro.green-park.co.uk\/city-guilds-foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}