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The Story So Far...
A Brief History of Derbyshire Community Foundation
Derbyshire Community Foundation was set up in 1996, making it easy for donors to support projects in their local community and for those seeking funding to find the grants and advice they need.
Our long-term invested funds will help the community for years to come.
A fund for Derbyshire
Derbyshire Community Foundation is a young foundation covering the county of Derbyshire and city of Derby. Established in 1996, we reached our first £1 million in combined donations and pledges by the Millennium.
Since 1996, we have distributed grants worth over £7,000,000 to hundreds of groups all over the county.
These groups help people to tackle any number of different problems, building and strengthening community life countywide.
A Gift that Goes on Giving
The key advantage of this method of giving is that the benefits are permanent. Donations are pooled to create a capital fund which is invested. The fund itself remains year-on-year, generating income for grant-making. A gift made now will still be there in 100 years' time, providing funds for grants to address problems we can't anticipate today.
Community foundations are very much of the moment, embodying many of the values now recognised as fundamental to active communities and inclusive practice – a focus on strengthening local people’s ability to address local needs; assisting excluded groups to play a full part in local life and take some control over their own lives; bringing private, public and voluntary sectors together to act on local issues, pooling knowledge, experience and funds; managing and applying financial resources in a businesslike and constructive way; and above all thinking about the future and creating growing, sustainable, long term resources.
In the UK, community foundations have only been active since the early 80’s. Almost 90% of the UK population has a community foundation at some stage of development. Some are still very young and small. The largest is Tyne and Wear and Northumberland, which holds £25 million in endowment.
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