Inspiring giving spring 2015

Inspiring GIVING SPRING 2015

Good friends Dear supporter, We all need good friends – the ones who are there to support you when you need it most.

Friends like Professor Hans and Mrs Marit Rausing. We met in 2006 when they set up our first-ever named fund in order to manage their local giving in Sussex. Their charitable objectives are very similar to our own - to tackle the root causes of deprivation and disadvantage across Sussex. Their original £50,000 donation kickstarted our grant-making and, crucially, gave confidence to other donors to come on board and trust us to help them focus their own giving.

We’ve made many new friends since then and, thanks to these friends, we have just reached a very exciting milestone. At their first Board meeting in 2006, our trustees set themselves a target to build a £10 million endowment fund within ten years. They knew this was ambitious but wanted to establish a firm foundation to support Sussex communities well into the future.

On 31st January 2015, we reached this £10 million target, one year ahead of schedule. We are proud of this achievement. It proves that we are good at what we do and that we can inspire our friends to support Sussex people and communities. Sometimes, this can leave us wondering how to pay our own bills. We don’t waste money. In fact, for every £1 we spend on fundraising, we bring in over £50. This compares extremely favourably with the average £5.83 brought in for every £1 spent by the top 100 charities.

We are launching our new Friends scheme to give you the opportunity to support us to support Sussex communities in a simple but effective way. Friends of Sussex Community Foundation make an annual gift, either £500 or £1,000. Your donations will support our day-to-day work, bringing in new funds, running our grants programme and helping us to plan for the long-term benefit of Sussex people.

We will thank our Friends on our website. You’ll get our Annual Review, an invitation to our annual public event, where you’ll meet some of the people you have helped and you’ll be able to claim tax relief on your donation. If you sign up to give a £1,000 or more, we’ll invite you to one of our exclusive Sussex events and thank you in our Annual Review. But more importantly than all of that, you’ll be demonstrating your support for the local community, supporting our development and helping us to help communities help themselves across Sussex. For more information, visit www.sussexgiving.org.uk/friends We’d like to publicly thank Marit & Hans Rausing for their original faith in us and all our friends who have been inspired to follow their lead.

News in brief SURVIVING WINTER The first Surviving Winter grants to groups supporting older and vulnerable people have started to go out. This year, our campaign has raised over £16,000.

Thank you to everyone who donated to it. With all the main political parties talking about scrapping the winter fuel allowance after May’s General Election, our campaign may look a little different next winter!

GOODBYE HELLO We said goodbye to three tireless trustees last year and said hello to two more.

Goodbye to Steve Manwaring, Kathy Gore DL and John Peel OBE and hello to Maggie Burgess and His Honour Keith Hollis (pictured above right). We look forward to working with them to build on the success of our departing trustees.

NEXT GRANTS DEADLINE Our next grants deadline is on Friday 17 April 2015, 5pm. Visit www.sussexgiving.org.uk/apply for more information and to apply online. Or call 01273 409440.

FRIENDS If you want to give to Sussex but the time isn’t right to make a larger donation, you may be interested to hear more about our new Friends scheme which will help to fund us to fund others. Visit www.sussexgiving.org.uk/friends NEWSLETTER DELIVERY

Kevin Richmond, Chief Executive, Sussex Community Foundation

Would you prefer to get this newsletter by email? If so, you can sign up here www.sussexgiving.org.uk/newsletter

EVENTS On a beautiful June evening last summer, guests gathered on the lawns at the home of BBC TV’s Question Time presenter David Dimbleby and his wife Belinda Giles. Our thanks go to the David and Belinda for their hospitality and also to solicitors Rix & Kay who sponsored the event.

The High Sheriff of West Sussex, Jonathan Lucas and his wife Caroline hosted a summer party for our donors, some of the groups we fund and other supporters in the grounds of their Warnham Park, a working deer park, last July. The weather was beautiful and guests enjoyed hog roast and ice cream, plus Sussex beer and wine, courtesy of Horsham brewers Hepworths and Bolneys Wine Estate. The event was made possible by CCLA Investment Management.

We held one of our regular Seeing is Believing events, Tackling Homelessness in West Sussex, in July. Attendees visited homelessness charity Stonepillow in Chichester, St Joseph’s night shelter, an abstinence recovery house in Bognor Regis and the Worthing Churches Homelessness Project. Donors met volunteers, staff and service-users and learned more about the issues and challenges they face.

We met local community leaders in Hastings in October to discuss whether philanthropy could help address some of the disadvantage that affects areas of the town. The event was part of the Philanthropy Fellowship South East programme.

Local philanthropists heard the views of the community, learned about the Big Local North East Hastings initiative and discussed how philanthropists can support positive change in the town. Speakers included Ron Bennett, Chair of the Big Local North East Hastings (pictured here with Mags Pawson of the Ore Centre) which is behind a local ‘community centre support project’ which aims to breathe new life into four community centres via resident-led support and activity.

EVENTS In September, trustee Pamela Stiles and her husband Robert opened their Brighton home and garden, overlooking the Downs and sea, for a reception for supporters to hear more about our work. Alex Colville (pictured below, centre) of William Alexander Recruitment Services talked passionately about why their young, growing business has always been so keen to give locally and why they chose us to help them.

There was a great turnout for our seminar around the needs of older people in Sussex, held in Billingshurst Community Centre in September. There was lively debate and speakers representing Mid Sussex Older People’s Council, Age UK West Sussex, Tillington Local Care, Rother Valley Together and Crawley Community Transport. One of the main issues facing older people is transport. In West Sussex, the county council spends £5 million a year on transport but only £150,000 per year on community transport schemes, when there are 33,700 residents aged over 80 in the county.

Our founder The Duke of Richmond hosted a wonderful ‘thank you’ dinner for donors and trustees at his Goodwood House home in October,

We attended an event hosted by our parent organisation, UK Community Foundations, at the Stock Exchange in London in December, attended by Rob Wilson MP, Minister for Civil Society.

It was to celebrate the success of the Government’s Community First matchfunding scheme which raised over £10 million across the UK. We also said a fond farewell to UKCF Chief Executive, Stephen Hammersley, who will be replaced in March by Fabian French who comes to UKFC from Marie Curie Cancer Care.

In partnership with Thomas Eggar LLP, we hosted a second series of well-attended seminars for professional advisors on tax-effective giving in Crawley, Brighton and Chichester in October. The seminars were kindly sponsored by Thesis Asset Management.

CHARITABLE TRUSTS Since recently published Charity Commission guidance, an increasing number of trusts and charity trustees are discussing the future with their local community foundation, says Development Manager, Janet Ormerod (pictured).

“Sussex Community Foundation was approached by James Innes, Chair of the Innes Memorial Fund, to see if it would be possible to take over management of the charitable trust. James had seen the guidance on the Charity Commission website, advising that trustees contact their local community foundation to discuss options available.”

“The trust was originally set up by James’ grandfather to benefit people and charities in the Horsham District area. However, the current trustees were finding it increasingly difficult to manage the trust and find suitable

beneficiaries. Agreement was obtained from the Charity Commission for the trust to close and, with the transferred assets, the Innes Fund at Sussex Community Foundation has now been established. This will continue to benefit charitable causes in the Horsham and West Sussex area. As an extra bonus, some match-funding from the Government’s (now closed) Community First programme was also obtained, increasing the eventual value of the fund by over 25%,” says Janet.

“We are very pleased that the Foundation is able to perpetuate the work of the Innes Memorial Fund and that my grandfather’s legacy will continue to benefit needy people in the Horsham area,” says James Innes.

For more information about how we might be able to assist your charitable trust, call Janet on 01273 409 440 or visit www.sussexgiving. org.uk/professional-advisors

GRANTS NEWS Since our last newsletter, we’ve given out three rounds of grants totalling over £600,000 to charities and community groups across Sussex. We believe strongly that the best sort of sustainable change comes from within communities themselves. Good illustrations of this belief are the following three organisations who each received grants last year.

Here is pantomime regular Martyn Knight and the cast of Beauty and the Beast at the Eastbourne Devonshire Park theatre, presenting a cheque for £6,800 from our Cullum Family Fund to Anne Bickmore of the abc Fund. The money paid for over 400 tickets for local disadvantaged children and families to see the show.

Oh no, it didn’t! Oh yes, it did!

Arun & Chichester CAB received a grant of £5,000, from two of our funds, the Marit & Hans Rausing Fund and the Dame Elizabeth Nash Fund. The grant will help meet the costs of a debt specialist for two days per week, plus other costs.

NEW FUNDS Brighton Pebbles is a parent-led group for children with disabilities and their families. They received a £1,500 grant from our Leyden House Fund towards office rental, the costs of their ‘carers’ boot camp’ sessions and some salary costs.

Groups are invited to apply to our newly-launched Cragwood Fund which will give larger grants for homelessness projects in West Sussex.

The deadline for applications is 17 April 2015 and criteria is available www.sussexgiving.org.uk/howitworks.

Other funds giving larger grants are the Open Door (again targeting homelessness in West Sussex), the Meads Fund, which will give grants to groups working to tackle social exclusion in Eastbourne, and the Blagrave Fund which will give four large grants to charities and community groups working in Brighton & Hove. Our new Fangorn Fund will also give out its first grants in 2015.

For more information about all of these, please speak to Mary or Adrian in our friendly Grants Team on 01273 409440.

Sussex Community Foundation raises funds for and gives grants to smaller charities and community groups across East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton & Hove. We make it easy for Sussex people to give money to local causes close to their hearts and ensure that those donations reach the people that need them. Our endowment fund enables our donors to benefit Sussex people for generations to come.

Sussex Community Foundation, 15 Western Road, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1RL 01273 409440 / info@sussexgiving.org.uk / www.sussexgiving.org.uk

© SUSSEX COMMUNITY FOUNDATION Inspiring Giving SPRING 2015

REGISTERED CHARITY 1113226