We are delighted to welcome Anne Davies and Nick Case to our Board of Trustees, who bring a wealth of business expertise to the organisation from their work in the private sector and long experience of information systems and financial management.
Has your organisation been planning a new and bold initiative but lacked the necessary funding? The RAISE Challenge Fund is looking to support innovation, piloting, testing and development in the voluntary sector to help local organisations make a step change and achieve greater results.
OCF has awarded a large grant to Trax, an Oxford-based charity that provides training opportunities and counselling to disadvantaged and disengaged young people. The group, which specialises in bike refurbishment, is using the grant to create a social enterprise model that will allow them to be self-sufficient.
Community foundations UK-wide are now collectively in the top 15 for charitable endowments held in the UK, with the second fastest growing endowment in the country. As we approach the General Election, umbrella organisation UKCF is lobbying for the next government to make local philanthropy one of its key strategic priorities.
Oxfordshire Community Foundation is delighted and very proud to see dedicated Chair Anna Moon win the prestigious High Sheriff’s Award for Contributions to Community Life.
The Future-Building Fund takes a ground-breaking approach to supporting the local charitable sector, providing large grants to help ambitious charities significantly scale up their operation. The fund has recently awarded grants to Trax and Yellow Submarine, with more in the pipeline.
Annual festival Folk Weekend: Oxford will be held on 17th-19th April 2015, and holds events throughout the city centre. This year, funding from OCF will help them include a Makaton project in the event, aimed at people with communication difficulties.
Steeple Aston’s seniors group The Valentine Club has received a metaphorical red rose from OCF, as they are awarded a £1,000 grant from the Surviving Winter appeal to help them share friendship and activities for rural over-60s.
The prestigious event at Oxford’s Town Hall gave well deserved recognition for many individual volunteers and hard-working groups who are the lifeblood of Oxfordshire’s communities – and many of whom have received funding from OCF.
Community groups in Oxfordshire now have the chance to apply for Comic Relief funding via OCF, with new online forms now available for this and other funds. This grants round will be open on a one-off basis for 2015, and will close on Monday 23rd February, so groups only have three weeks to apply.