# Sixty per cent rise in new local charitable funds, say Community Foundation Network

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/01/25/sixty-cent-rise-new-local-charitable-funds-say-community-foundation-network/
- Published: 2010-01-25T10:45:17+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**The Community Foundation Network (CFN) reports that the number of individual donors
setting up charitable funds to support local groups rose by a 60% in 2009, the largest
increase in a year to date. The UK’s 57 community foundations now manage 1,765 major
charitable funds, with an average value of just under £80,000.**

During the year, private philanthropists added £33.5 million to their community 
foundation funds to support local communities. With other funds from central and
local government, and business, this meant an additional £56 million was made available
to support grassroots organisations.

Despite the increase, the overall value of grant-making by CFN members fell by 15%
during 2009. In 2008/9, grants made by local community foundations were used to 
support 16,922 local grassroots organisations tackling issues from unemployment 
and poverty to anti-social behaviour and drugs rehabilitation.

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Nevertheless, the large increase in new philanthropists setting up funds led Chief
Executive, Stephen Hammersley, to comment: “the figures show that the ‘spirit of
the blitz’ in hard times is alive and well in Britain today.”

Ten of the fifty-seven community foundations now work with individual clients who
have committed at least one million pounds in the past five years to strengthen 
their communities. One new fund in Leeds was worth £10 million alone in 2008/9.

www.communityfoundations.org.uk

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