DonorsEventsNewsOCFPeople talking at tables in a meeting room

On Thursday 21st June, over 30 people from Oxfordshire’s charitable funding organisations got together to discuss priority areas for funding, and find out how new technological advances could help make the funding process more efficient.

The event, kindly hosted by Blake Morgan, was the fourth in a series of Funders’ Forums convened by OCF. The agenda included a presentation from online match-funding platform The Good Exchange, which allows funders to collaborate to make collective grants to charitable organisations; and an update from Jane Cranston DL on the City Conversation on Rough Sleeping, which she is chairing with support from OCF.

OCF Chief Executive Jayne Woodley gave up update on the community foundation’s emerging strategic programmes, which home in on a small number of priority issues, and bring together charities, businesses, local authorities and funders interested to addressing them. There was a lot of support for this approach at the Funders’ Forum, and OCF will be involving as many stakeholders in this process as possible as we move forward.

Attendees commented that they appreciated the opportunity to get together with fellow funders and have the head space to reflect on their collective priorities, away from the everyday demands of their grant-making processes. One attendee commented: “All the sessions were useful. I learned a lot, especially that collaboration is essential. We want to avoid reinventing the wheel.”

In future OCF is committed to continuing to hold Funders’ Forum events, ensuring there is plenty of time allowed for networking and dialogue. We will continue to provide focus for funders through our strategic programmes, which are based on the priorities identified in our needs research Oxfordshire Uncovered.

Read about our previous Funders’ Forums