Partner Article

Grassroots endowment challenge

A new source of funding for community schemes in the North East has been made available this month.

The Grassroots Endowment Challenge was officially launched last by theCommunity Foundation last week. It was announced that over £1.3m has been made available in match funding.

For every £2 that is put into a new endowment, £1 will be matched by the government for donations from a minimum of £1,000 to a maximum of £500,000. The endowment is then invested for long-term growth and provides an annual income for grant making to the local community.

Ashley Winter of the Learning and Skills Council, who already has a fund at the Community Foundation, was the first person to sign up to the challenge.

He said: “This came at an ideal time for us as we were planning on investing further at the Community Foundation. Our original donation has nearly doubled as a result of this new scheme! We would encourage anyone who is thinking of setting up a charitable fund to consider Grassroots Endowments at the Community Foundation.”

The match funding is available for a limited time only across Tyne & Wear and Northumberland so if you would like to find out more please call Peter Storey, Development Director at the Community Foundation on 0191 222 0945.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .