N Ireland foundation made grants worth £1 million in 2017
Howard Lake | 13 June 2019 | News
Ulster Garden Villages (UGV), one of Northern Ireland’s largest charitable foundations, gave out grants worth £1 million in 2017, just over £200,000 down from the year before.
As well as its in year grant giving UGV has future grant commitments over the next three years of £3 million to charitable projects. UGV reports that the number of applications to the foundation was roughly similar to the year before.
UGV also provides loans to charities, mainly interest free, which amounted to over £1 million in 2017.
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58 grants were allocated in 2017 in the fields of disability, health, community, scientific and medical research, culture and heritage and education and training. The trust states that it favours projects which will leverage other sources of funding.
In 2016 health grants accounted for nearly 50% of UGV’s giving but in 2017 nearly half of grants by value (£465,000) when to cultural and heritage projects. The largest capital grant in the cultural and heritage category, £150,000, was given to Studio Theatre in Bangor, Co Down, while the Ulster Orchestra received 175,000 as part of a four year annual commitment. The orchestra support is for community outreach.
While health received a smaller allocation in 2017 at £163,000 UGV says that it is still an important priority. One of largest health commitments is a three year grant to Marie Curie’s Rapid Response Nursing Support Service.
Under the disability category, Action Mental Health received the second tranche of £20,000 while Arthritis Care and the Brain Injury Trust completed multi-year grants. UGV has a long history of supporting medical research and provided £44,000 as part of a multi-year grant to the Ulster University for heart research.
Ulster Garden Village‘s main source of income is rental income from property investment and in 2017 it reported a big increase in surplus, from £1.2 million to £5.2 million.
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- Tesco Centenary Fund offers £200k in Northern Ireland (19 March 2019)
- Northern Ireland charities to benefit from £16 million dormant account fund (18 September 2019)
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.