CorporatesNewsOCFFour members of the Wise Funds team

Wise Funds have donated over £1,600 to Oxfordshire Community Foundation’s (OCF) Collective Business Fund for a third year running, pooling funds with other Oxfordshire companies to have a greater reach across the Oxfordshire charitable sector.

We are delighted that Wise Funds have chosen OCF as one of their charity partners for another year. Wise Funds is an investment management business based near Chipping Norton.

The company gives to four charities each year, plus one personal charity chosen by each staff member. Staff take part in the carbon footprint scheme, and choose a community project to support. Wise Funds also encourages all employees to use their payroll giving scheme, so that their personal charities can receive monthly donations.

Joanna Scavuzzo-Ramsey from Wise Funds said:

“As an Oxfordshire-based company we try and support local charities in and around the area. As a small employee-owned company we allocate a proportion of our profits towards charities each year. We value the work OCF does in the community, and the fact that our support has a wider reach through their various grants and schemes, and by being pooled with contributions from other businesses.”

The charitable donation has been added to OCF’s Collective Business Fund, where local businesses significantly increase their positive impact by combining contributions in one fund from which grants are made annually to Oxfordshire charitable organisations. By coming together, this enables the fund to have a more significant impact – reaching more charities across the county than any company could alone.

Over the past two years, the Collective Business Fund has been contributing towards OCF’s grants to tackle the increased cost of living. Our corporate donors have contributed along, with other funders, to a total of £559k in grants being awarded to 77 of Oxfordshire’s grassroots charities. Practical support for essentials such as food, heating and clothing was funded, alongside longer-term, preventative solutions, and investment in charities’ running costs to enable them to continue their vital work.

People packing food parcels in a hallOne such charity was the Syrian Community in Oxfordshire (SYRCOX), which is using its grant to deliver emergency food parcels every Thursday to disadvantaged people in Oxfordshire. The food parcels contain ingredients and recipe cards for specific dishes around the world, with different cuisines introduced regularly. The parcels teach families how to cook healthy and nutritious meals that are affordable and help break them out of a cycle of bad health and reliance on expensive ready-made meals. The food parcels give families hope for a better future by alleviating hunger and poverty, leading to improved mental health. They also help build relationships between people in the community.

Another funded organisation was Didcot Community Partnership, which fills gaps in provision of services that benefit children, young people and families in Didcot and the wider community. The charity’s Our Patch family centre acts as a community hub, offering a diverse a range of activities such as hot food for families in school holidays, workshops on mental health, and monthly social meetings and hosted events. Didcot Community Partnership is using their grant to increase opening hours, range of services and communications, building towards a centre that provides open access drop-ins in the mornings, more formal learning activities in the afternoon and is available for other community groups to use in the evenings. Having the capacity to open the family centre more frequently will provide a space for people struggling with anxiety, isolation and/or mental health concerns to come on a regular basis.

Members of the Collective Business Fund receive annual impact reports showing where their donation has been targeted, as well as case studies of charities and individuals that have benefited from OCF’s grant-making.

Find out more about how you can become a part of our Collective Business Fund and pool your charitable giving with other like-minded Oxfordshire businesses.