Community Foundation National Conference (From The Northern Echo)

Community Foundation National Conference

11:50am Tuesday 28th June 2011 in County Durham Community Foundation By Barbara Gubbins

Last week around 350 delegates and high profile speakers attended the Community Foundation Network's national conference in Newcastle, with the second evening's event being held at Beamish Museum.

Part of a worldwide movement, there are now 57 community foundations in the UK, and delegates travelled from as far as the USA and Australia.

The movement now holds £300 million in endowment ensuring communities will benefit long term from their local community foundation. The network currently distributes about £70 million a year in grants to voluntary groups and individuals and this has more than doubled in recent years.

In fact, with the exception of Cumbria, it is estimated that everyone lives 2.5 miles from a group that has received a grant from a community foundation.

Apart from being inspired by motivational speakers, exchanging best practice and ideas with other community foundations in the network, it was great to bring the delegates to Beamish and give them a taste of just one of the fantastic tourist attractions in Durham, accompanied by cultural talent from the Riverside Brass band and the Durham Cathedral Choristers. Hopefully they will be back for more.