Effectiveness

Community Foundation for Greater Manchester 

'Unlocking dormant assets for the benefit of the community'

The Community Foundation for Greater Manchester raises money from the private and public sectors for the benefit of grassroots community groups in disadvantaged areas of the region. A key aim of the Foundation is to create a sustainable source of funding for such organisations, and research conducted by the chief executive into community foundations in the US had shown that this had often be achieved by the effective management and growth of endowment funds.

As development manager Jean Mills explains, he then looked at how this could be done in the UK. 'He found that often, local authorities were sitting on dormant trust funds that they'd held for many years. He applied this theory to Greater Manchester's local authorities and realised that, potentially, there was approximately £2 million worth of trust funds in Greater Manchester alone.' Most of the trust funds dated back to the Victorian era, and were dormant for number of reasons, often because the original purpose had become outdated.

The pilot scheme took place with Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, and the Borough of Rochdale Fund was officially launched in October 2005. Having developed a proven model, similar funds have now been launched in Bury, Stockport and Manchester, while the Salford Community Fund will be launched this summer, and talks are underway with Bolton and Wigan MBCs.

At the time of application £720,000 of the dormant funds had been transferred to the Foundation's control, with a further £460,000 from Salford and £200,000 from Bolton and Wigan expected by June 2007. Using average fund investment performance rates these revitalised funds are forecasted to grow to £1.5million in 5 years and provide new cumulative funding of £311,000 (4 per cent of fund value each year) to support community groups and projects.

Tariq Ahmed
Director of marketing and development
Beswick House
Beswick Row
Manchester M4 4LA
0161 214 0959
Reg no: 1017504
www.communityfoundation.co.uk