Government supports new Virgin Money Foundation with £4m grant
Howard Lake | 11 December 2014 | News
Virgin Money is to create a new charitable foundation which will invest in projects that benefit the communities in which the organisation works. The Virgin Money Foundation will start to operate in the first half of 2015, and will be independent of the bank, with its own Chair and Board of Trustees.
At the same time, The Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced £4 million of Government funding for the Foundation to support charitable projects in the North-East of England. This adds to the £1 million that Virgin Money announced in September 2014 that it would invest in North-East community projects.
The Government’s funding come from the fines levied on banks for manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) financial benchmark. It will give £1 a year for four years.
Bank to fund the operating costs
Virgin Money will cover the operating costs of the new Foundation, to ensure that 100% of money donated to the Foundation will be used for its charitable objectives. The same approach is used to fund the costs of Virgin Money Giving, the online donation platform.
The Foundation will operate in similar areas to the Northern Rock Foundation, which, following the collapse of Northern Rock, announced in September that it would be closing as it had been unable to raise sustainable funding from the private sector.
The Chancellor said:
”The Northern Rock Foundation made a considerable impact in the North East in recent years, but sadly that has come to an end as a result of the deal made when Northern Rock collapsed.
“It is only right that we use the fines from those who’ve demonstrated the worst values, to support the charitable causes in the North East that demonstrate the best of British values on a daily basis.”Advertisement
The Virgin Money Foundation’s first projects in the North East will focus on making a positive difference for young people in the region. It will work with The Community Foundation (Tyne & Wear and Northumberland), and continue discussions with Newcastle City Council with the aim of creating a programme to revitalise empty properties across the city.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.