Reports and Accounts

Reviewing the progress we make each year against our strategic goals.

Paula Long’s paintings are a bold celebration of colour, from shimmering sunsets over poppy fields to tactile depictions of trees, yellow leaves embellished with gold flecks or multicoloured boughs dotted by bright beads.    Paula, 61, is pictured here doing a painting in her well-lit living room.  Paula was diagnosed with Glaucoma in 2008.

Our organisation’s vision is to: “Save Sight. Change Lives”. Over the past year, we've continued to deliver on our strategy to grow our grant making, while maintaining a prudent approach to income generation.

Our researchers are at the forefront, making breakthroughs and discoveries that will help us understand, prevent, diagnose and treat eye disease. The partnerships we build and initiatives we support are changing life for blind and vision impaired people. 

During the period covered by this Annual Report, we have ploughed £3.1m into research. As well as funding projects, we have invested in talented scientists and clinicians. Over £707k has gone to innovative projects that will change the lives of people impacted by vision loss. 

Our Annual Report 2024 - 2025. PDF

Our impact in numbers 

  • £3.1m
    Total grants awarded for research
  • £707k
    Total grants awarded for social change

Invest 

We invest in “brilliant minds” (scientists) who explore how we can better understand, prevent, diagnose and treat eye disease – areas set out in our research strategy. We’re also funding “bright ideas” that positively change the lives of people who are blind and vision impaired.

Inform 

We commission and conduct research to inform the landscape of our sector in order to drive change. 

In 2024 our research into the experiences of loneliness and isolation for blind and vision impaired people revealed 1 in 3 people experience loneliness. 

Influence

The projects we fund directly touch the lives of the people engaged in them. Everything we learn through these projects, the measured impact and the science we fund, also influences our wider sector and society.

People Power 

We’re grateful to all who have supported us this year, everyone who fundraised, volunteered or donated to our cause. Marathon runners who, with every step, put change in sight for everyone living with vision loss; and, of course, the philanthropists who gave so generously, companies that have supported us, and our Family Funds who work tirelessly year after year. Together, we’re putting change in sight. 

Money Matters 

Our income and how we spend it 

“If we assess 15 grants, we might only fund three or four. That isn’t to say the grants below that line are not meritorious. Now, if we had more money, that line would go down a bit further, and we would fund maybe five or six projects instead of three or four.
Professor Alan Stitt, Chief Scientific Advisor for Fight for Sight
More on the research we fund

Previous annual reports 

We’re investing in research that explores all aspects of life for people who are blind or vision impaired, to ensure our funding has the greatest impact
Find out more
Two women sit at a table holding hands. One woman looks upset while the other woman has her hand on her shoulder and comforting her