Northern Rock Foundation

In its Annual Review, published this month, Northern Rock Foundation has celebrated 15 years of providing funding for a wide range of voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations.

Alastair Balls Chairman of the Foundation said  “Over 15 years we have given out £215 million to over 2,000 organisations, to tackle some of the most difficult problems we face as a society.”

The report also highlights the work of the Foundation in engaging in cutting edge research looking at how third sector organisations are responding to a changing operating environment. This has changed the way the Foundation understands the voluntary and community sector and has had national impact. Other research projects have tackled difficult and under explored and researched areas such as rape and domestic violence in the UK and are influencing and changing policy of national and regional agencies working in these fields.

Penny Wilkinson, Chief Executive of Northern Rock Foundation, said: “Throughout this Annual Review there are examples of voluntary organisations meeting the challenges they face with ingenuity and imagination. Support for victims of domestic violence, new solutions to homelessness and debt, partnerships to help young offenders or refugees and ways to change attitudes to people with dementia are all projects funded by the Foundation this year. There are also, though, examples of organisations providing crucial support, like advocacy for people with learning disabilities, which need core funding to continue to deliver existing valued services. The Foundation aims to provide the most useful type of support through a mix of grants, loans, training, advice and information to help organisations develop, improve and support people in need.”

The Foundation  is no longer awarding grants to new applicants it has not previously funded, but the Foundation has pledged to continue to help charities find support from other major grant giving bodies and funding sources in order to sustain their work in the future. It is also planning, with the support of Big Society Capital and other partners, to establish a social investment fund for the north east, designed to make loans to voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, to catalyse their growth and increase their social impact.

In response to the recent announcement by Virgin Money of their donation to the Foundation, Alastair Balls said, “We are delighted that Virgin Money, our corporate donor, has recently made a donation of £0.5m to contribute to our work in 2013 and we continue to discuss with them how we can work together in future.”

To download the 2012 Annual Review please click here.