Paul Hamlyn Foundation (PHF) is one of the UK’s largest independent grant-making foundations. In 2024, it restructured the decision-making process for its Migration Fund to introduce an Advisory Group comprising six external individuals with complementary skills, knowledge, and lived experience of migration and the hostile environment.
The Advisory Group works alongside PHF staff to review and shortlist grant applications before final decisions are made by a panel of external advisors and PHF trustees. Its remit goes beyond shortlisting: members provide strategic input into PHF’s migration funding priorities, identify gaps in the existing portfolio, surface opportunities to reach underrepresented communities, and help expand PHF’s networks beyond organisations it has previously been aware of.
The Migration Fund’s eligibility criteria reflect an explicit commitment to equity. It welcomes organisations of any size, including newly established and unincorporated groups, and for smaller organisations is prepared to fund up to 50 per cent of annual income. Funding priorities include shifting power to migrants and diaspora communities, embedding anti-racist practice, and building solidarity across communities working toward transformational change.
PHF has been transparent about what drove this change, noting the limits of shortlisting decisions made purely by staff and the importance of external expertise and lived experience in identifying where funding is genuinely most needed. The Advisory Group model is presented not as a governance concession but as a route to better-informed and more equitable decisions.