Our Community Fund
The Newcastle Building Society Community Fund at the Community Foundation serving Tyne & Wear and Northumberland gives grants to local charities across the North East, Cumbria, and North Yorkshire.
Since setting up the Fund in 2016, more than £1.8m in grants has been awarded to over 500 charities, making a positive difference in the communities we’re based.
This year we’re continuing to focus on helping tackle the key issues in our region:
- Food poverty: helping our communities achieve food security
- Sustainability and the environment: helping our communities reduce their carbon impact or supporting biodiversity and conservation
- Work and opportunity: helping to develop regional talent and the opportunity to access decent work for those less advantaged
- Homelessness: working to end housing insecurity and reduce homelessness
- Debt management: providing advice, information, and guidance to help those most in need to develop their financial capability
Supercharging our grant giving
We donated an additional £1m to the Community Fund to generate additional grant funding for communities. The donation brings the total value of the Fund to over £3.5m, making it one of the largest of its type in the country, and supporting our region for generations to come.
Here’s just a few of the great causes we’ve recently supported:
Building Futures East
Building Futures East received a grant of £4,450 to help increase the capacity of their community garden, build new planters and polytunnels and help with staffing costs.
The riverside garden will help give local people a peaceful place to work together and build their skills, while the food grown there will help support Building Futures East’s foodbank with food for all its service users.
Tullie
Carlisle museum and cultural hub, Tullie, has used a £2,000 grant to support a volunteering project involving asylum seekers living in the city.
The £2,000 grant has been used to bring in experienced project leader and keen gardener, Chuck Whitehead, to run the project, as well as pay for the necessary gardening equipment.
Over 100 men and women have taken part in the fortnightly sessions at the garden throughout the past year, with some of the volunteers visiting outside of the dedicated sessions to help with more work.
Our latest grant recipients
