The Shirley Foundation, based in the United Kingdom, was established in 1996 by Dame Stephanie Shirley CH, who gave a substantial endowment to establish a charitable trust fund. The foundation ranked in the top 50 of grant giving foundations in the UK and was 'spent out' in 2018.
Major awards have been given as follows: £15m has been given to the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and the Oxford Internet Institute. Over £50m has been given for autism spectrum disorders. including setting up three charities: Autism at Kingwood founded in 1994 (support services); Prior's Court Foundation founded in 1999 (education) and Autistica founded in 2004 (research) which together employ over 1,000 staff. The foundation also founded Autism Cymru charity (1999-2011); the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Autism (1999); the National Autism Project (2014-2019); the National Autistic Taskforce (2017-); and supported the Patrick Wild Centre; Autism Together; The Autism Research Centre and many others (70 autism projects in total).