Introducing Maudsley Charity  

About us

Maudsley Charity is a mental health charity based in southeast London. We fund and promote ideas, collaborations and teams that give people most affected by mental ill-health the best chance to recover and fulfil their potential.

Why we’re here

The consequences of mental ill health are far reaching – affecting employment, relationships, finances and even life expectancy. It can take a long time to find and access the care you need and deserve.


We are located in an area with a highly diverse population and some of the highest levels of serious mental illness in Europe. By investing in understanding what works here we can contribute to improved mental health for everyone. ​

How we work

We target the majority of our resources towards people who are most in need of but least likely to receive mental health care in the way and at the time that they should.


We give grants, funded from our endowment and donations, which range from multi-million pound clinical and research initiatives intended to drive change across the UK, to small scale projects supporting people who experience mental illness in south London.


We balance short and long-term goals. We want to make an immediate difference to lives and fund ideas which will have an impact on future generations.

Two men laughing outside. One wears a flannel shirt, the other a hooded sweatshirt.

Partnerships

​We work primarily with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, as well as a range of voluntary and community organisations to fund ideas, big and small, that drive service improvement and support people who experience mental illness.


​While we operate primarily within the four boroughs served by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham, and Southwark), we believe that all the work we fund has the potential for wider impact at both national and international levels, through the sharing of the outcomes with the wider mental health community. ​

Where we’ve come from

We can trace our history back to 1247 and the foundation of Bethlem Royal Hospital, the oldest psychiatric institution in the world. In 2018 we became an independent charity. Before that we were formally part of South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Our Board now comprises of eight independent trustees and three trustees nominated by the Trust. ​

Where we are going

This is a particularly exciting time to join the charity. We are maturing as an independent charity and have recently completed our strategic plan for 2024-2029. We have committed at least £40m over the next five years to projects focused on improving the lives of people with mental illness. ​


We are a small but growing team with bold ambitions around:


  • How we can have maximum impact on the improvement of mental health services
  • How we can address issues of discrimination and exclusion in what we fund and how we work
  • How we can generate more funds to extend our work and build communities of support


Our Strategy >>

The Harris Hill Salary Survey 2025 graphic with the words
By David Young September 12, 2025
How much do charity CEOs get paid? The short answer is that although charity leaders tend to earn considerably less than their commercial counterparts, pay still varies enormously, depending on factors like the size and complexity of the charity's operations, its annual income, and the scale of the challenge facing the incoming CEO.
Harris Hill salary survey 2025 graphic with purple spheres labeled temporary, interim, contract, and fixed term.
By David Young September 1, 2025
Tough economic times have certainly had an impact on the number of permanent hires that charities have been able to make this year, but what about temporary and interim positions? Here's what our Temps specialists had to say about the trends they're seeing in the market, in our 2025 Salary Survey .
The Harris Hill Salary Survey 2025 graphic with the words
By David Young September 12, 2025
How much do charity CEOs get paid? The short answer is that although charity leaders tend to earn considerably less than their commercial counterparts, pay still varies enormously, depending on factors like the size and complexity of the charity's operations, its annual income, and the scale of the challenge facing the incoming CEO.
Harris Hill salary survey 2025 graphic with purple spheres labeled temporary, interim, contract, and fixed term.
By David Young September 1, 2025
Tough economic times have certainly had an impact on the number of permanent hires that charities have been able to make this year, but what about temporary and interim positions? Here's what our Temps specialists had to say about the trends they're seeing in the market, in our 2025 Salary Survey .
The Harris Hill salary survey 2025 graphic: Yellow spheres with finance, accounting, payroll labels.
By David Young August 27, 2025
Say you work in finance and many will imagine a world of six-figure salaries, baffling spreadsheets, detached houses in the Home Counties and a statistically inexplicable number of people called Steve. Working in charity finance however, is – baffling spreadsheets aside – a rather different story, but with their finger on the pulse and their ear to the ground at all times (we should really get them some chairs), our finance specialists are perfectly placed to bring you up to speed on the latest twists and turns. Here’s what they had to say about remuneration and recruitment trends in the current market, in our 2025 Salary Survey .