There has been a community foundation in Shropshire since 2008, when the Telford Community Trust converted to become the Community Foundation for Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin.  Sadly, they were forced to close in 2012 due to external factors, creating a danger that people in the county could have been left without access to the support offered by a community foundation.  In order to avoid that, their work, including promotion and publicity channels and websites, were taken over by us at the Community Foundation for Staffordshire, and we began operating in Shropshire under the name of the Community Foundation for Shropshire.  The financial assets of the original community foundation were transferred to other local charities.  The transfers took a while to complete, but in 2016 we began to offer new grants.  Initially they were limited to a few centralised grant schemes that had been offered by central government, but over time this increased to include local grants funds and endowments.  In 2019 we took the decision to roll out the full range of community foundation services in Shropshire, to enable the VCSE sector to develop, grow and thrive.  We appointed a sub-committee to help to steer and advise our work across the county, and in October 2020 we officially launched our increased offer at an event at Ironbridge.

The sub-committee decided that they wanted to do things in a different way and so broke away.  Although they now use the name community foundation, they are not a recognised community foundation.  Recognised community foundations have achieved quality accreditation, ensuring that they operate to certain agreed standards, ensuring good practice, and are members of UKCF, a membership body representing all recognised community foundations across the UK.  As a recognised community foundation, successor to the original Community Foundation for Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin, and member of UKCF, we help to build endowments to ensure that there will be a sustainable source of funding for the county’s voluntary and community sector long into the future.  We award nearly £500,000 in grants to the county every year, and we provide community outreach and support services.

What We Do

As we are locally based we understand our local community. We identify local needs and mobilise local resources. We aim to work closely with other support organisations across the county and with local authorities, for the betterment of the county, whilst remaining non-political.

As a registered charity and a company we have a board of trustees, who are also directors.  We have trustees from both Staffordshire and Shropshire, to ensure that whilst we are delivering services in Shropshire, there is local representation at the highest level, to help to steer our decision making. Trustees have a wide variety of backgrounds and experience, from banking and finance to business to work in the voluntary sector, to ensure that we are able to represent and understand the views of different sections of our county.

We are the local experts in grant-giving, particularly to grassroots level community groups, and to people who are usually considered hard-to-reach. We have comprehensive grant-making policies and procedures, combined with extensive knowledge and understanding of the local community and its needs, therefore ensuring grants are targeted responsibility and carefully. We hold a range of quality accreditation standards, to emphasise our clear and transparent method of working to a high standard.

Our Objectives

Following extensive consultation with the VCSE sector across Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin, we formulated a list of things that people wanted to see.  Some of these may already be happening across the county, and where they are we will aim to work in partnership with others, to add value and help to spread the word where we can.  Where things are not happening we will aim to fill the gap, to ensure that Shropshire’s VCSE, private and public sectors, and people across the county, have the same level of service from a community foundation that people in other counties do.  As a result of our conversations and feedback received we have drawn up the following list of objectives for the near future:

• Build up a permanent endowment fund to facilitate long-term, sustainable grant-giving that benefits the county
• Use our knowledge and expertise to secure future grant-funding that can be accessed by local charities, voluntary and community groups
• Produce the first ‘Vital Signs’ report for the county, focusing on hidden need
• Launch our ‘Investors in Community’ scheme to recognise the contributions made by donors to the local community
• Increase our contacts across the county to build up our existing database of charitable organisations to ensure that people are aware of the support available to them
• Develop a database of existing support so that we can effectively signpost people to the relevant agencies, so that there is less confusion about who provides what
• Research, design and develop a programme of general support, training and development for charitable organisations
• Promote a charity networking group for people across the county to come together to talk to one another, and learn from each other
• Facilitate collaboration between charities, voluntary and community organisations to reduce duplication and enable them to better work together and allow them to compete with larger organisations for funding
• Research and implement an effective platform to manage volunteering needs and offers, and a skills bank