Herefordshire Community Foundation, The Fred Bulmer Centre, Wall Street, Hereford HR4 9HP Registered Charity No. 1094935 Registered in England and Wales No. 4468139

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HOME - Herefordshire Community Foundation

Ways to Give

Individuals, families, companies - as a flexible foundation, we can be totally responsive to your needs and can easily set up a fund for you, or help with your regular grant-making. A fund can be established with a simple agreement - we take care of all legal and tax requirements, as well as all grant administration. Endowment funds are managed by our professional fund mangers in pooled funds for maximum efficiency. We keep in regular touch with you - grants from your fund can be specifically directed towards causes you are concerned with, and we will monitor the use of the funds, and report back on the difference that your grants are making.

Our Key Aim is to raise the profile of philanthropy in Herefordshire.

Across the UK individuals, families, companies, private trusts and government agencies all use their local community foundations to establish funds to support their local area today and in the years to come.

We provide extensive support for people who are just starting to give, as well as exciting opportunities for more experienced philanthropists. Levels and methods of giving are tailored to suit each individual giver. If you would like to support us via an independent third party, then we thank you, and thebiggive.org.uk can help you to...

Make an immediate donation.
Leave a legacy.
Submit an anonymous enquiry.

Donors with sufficient resources may chose to establish a fund named after themselves or a loved one, which can support a range of causes over time. You can start a named fund with the Herefordshire Community Foundation from as little as £15,000, for example:

CF in Herefordshire set up a named fund in memory of her father, who died in 2005. This fund will provide small grants for environmental initiatives that involve young people.

Apart from Grassroots giving, we currently have four named funds in the community foundation:

The John Morgan Fund
The Becket Bulmer Fund
The Hergest Fund
The Richard Bulmer Fund

Some donors will pool their contributions with other donors into a themed fund, to support a favourite cause, such as children, or the environment, arts or sport. Whilst we currently do not have themed funds in Herefordshire, we are interested in talking with any group of donors who would be interested in this type of initiative, for any specific interest area.

We hope that the following two stories of what donors have done in other community foundations will give you some other examples of what can be done...

BUSINESSMAN SUPPORTS YOUNG PEOPLE

The Readman Foundation, a fund at the Community Foundation serving Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, is committed to making grants totally £150,000 a year for at least ten years, "to help young people in the north east help themselves".

North East Businessman of the Year Guy Readman OBE explains...

"Having sold my business in the 1990s, I agreed to set up a fund initially pledging to pay at least £5000 a year, knowing I might well help add to that sum later. Each year, I received a list of projects to help me choose those I wanted to fund and over the next few years, I became rather more involved in its development.

Later I sold a second business and partly because I had seen how much good a little extra money can do in our society, the idea of setting up a charitable foundation evolved. I looked into running my own charity, but after talking to the community foundation, it was obvious that there were huge advantages in setting up my own foundation under their umbrella.

The Readman Foundation would be up and running in a couple of weeks without legal formality and with minimum set up costs. We didn't need to appoint trustees although we did agree to set up a grants advisory group. The community foundation could actively help with the marketing to ensure a number of high quality projects to select from. They also took on board my ideas about design and promotion, but did all the legwork and dealt with all enquiries, sending me helpful reports and comments. If I have less time to devote to the charity in years to come, the community foundation will step in as needed.”

TAX-EFFICIENT, FLEXIBLE GIVING

The Heatherlea Fund at the Birmingham Foundation was set up by two private individuals who work in the Birmingham area and wanted to channel their donations to benefit local projects. As with all donations, their foundation is able to claim Gift Aid which makes giving tax efficient. Since 2000, their regular donations have provided over £78,000 to boost the foundation's endowment fund and support the donor's chosen causes, youth work and projects to help families. The foundation identifies projects that meet the donor's criteria and also researches into projects they suggest so they can meet their precise needs. Over the years the fund has paid for a crèche worker at a community centre and made grants to a local hospice and groups for young carers and people with cancer.