50 years of community foundations in the UK and Europe
Howard Lake | 15 May 2025 | News
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the first community foundation in the UK and Europe. Since then the growing network of community foundations have distributed over £2.1 billion to grassroots projects across the UK and Jersey.
Wiltshire Community Foundation was the UK’s and Europe’s first community foundation. Founded in May 1975 in Swindon, England, it was joined four years later by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland was created.
Community foundations encourage local giving by “bringing people together in common purpose to address local needs”.
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But they are more than local grant makers. They have “deep knowledge of the challenges and opportunities in their area, working in partnership with others to transform lives” and are a key element of placed-based philanthropy.
The number of community foundations grew thanks to UK government support and endowment challenge grants from Charities Aid Foundation and C.S Mott Foundation during the 1980s and 1990s.
Now there are over 850 community foundations across the UK and Europe. They are part of the global community foundation movement which continues to grow, with more than 1,800 community foundations now operating in countries throughout Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, North America and the South Pacific.
In the UK community foundations have a membership network body, UK Community Foundations. It operates with the purpose that “environmental justice, social equity, diversity and inclusion should be woven into every aspect of grant making and community investment”.
One of its many projects is working with the Charity Commission for England and Wales to revive dormant assets. These can be charities or trusts that are likely to close down or finding it difficulty legally to distribute funds according to their charitable objectives. UKCF helps such charities either get back up and running or revitalise their dormant assets into good causes across the UK.
It works with government, businesses, trusts and foundations “to make a big impact at a local level”.
It is an alliance member of The Community Wealth Fund, a campaign calling for long-term investment in the neighbourhoods that need it most.
European community foundations have a similar membership network, the European Community Foundation Initiative.
Celebrating 50 years
UK Community Foundations (UKCF) has published an overview of the first 50 years of the movement in the UK and Europe. It features a timeline showing the year each UKCF member was founded and the total it has awarded, together with the combined total figure.
Wiltshire Community Foundation marked its 50th anniversary as the first UK and European community foundation by hosting a conference in Devizes to celebrate the contribution of the voluntary sector across Wiltshire and Swindon.
- New CEO for UK Community Foundations (2 July 2020)
- John Nickson joins UK Community Foundations as trustee (12 November 2015)
- UK and Canadian community foundations publish report cards to guide grantmaking (7 October 2015)
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.