I am Chief Executive of County Durham Foundation, the community foundation serving Durham & Darlington. We were set up in 1995 and since then have given out over £15 million to community groups in the local area on behalf of our donors.

This is my first time at writing a Blog so please bear with me. If you carry on to the bottom of this Blog you will read about the £800,000 we have just awarded across the county...

I will be using my Blog to tell you about new funding streams available through our grantmaking programmes, set up by local donors and through other partnerships including government funding.

Last week, we awarded almost £800,000 to projects in Durham & Darlington who are supporting families and individuals who have been affected by the recession. The Government's Targeted Support Fund is just one of the fantastic funding streams that have been made available to help local communities. We will be notifying all those groups who have been successful with their bids in the next week or so.

You can get more information by visiting our website.