Guaranteed Services From Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Community Foundation.
Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Community Foundation allows fundholders to decide what happens to their money and how it is spent, unlike when they may donate to other charities.
What makes us different?
To make a real difference, it's easy to set up a fund, either in your life-time or by leaving a legacy. Fundholders can have:
An endowment fund, where we invest your money using an expert investment manager to generate an annual income, which is then distributed in grants.
A revenue fund, where we give one-off support to specific good causes.
A combination of both the above.
We set up endowment and revenue based funds with the minimum of bureaucracy, fuss and cost
Fundholders can have as much or as little say in deciding who to support as they wish
The foundation is recognised for the quality of its work
Our grantmaking programmes address the real needs of our fund recipients
Fundholders can start a fund with either a lump sum payment, a gift of shares, leave a legacy or build your fund over number of years. They can add to their fund at any time
Fundholders can increase the value of your gifts by up to 40% from the taxman.
Who to support
As a fund holder you can choose to support to any charitable, benevolent or philanthropic cause. You can also support individuals as well as groups or projects (they do not have to be a registered charity). It’s also easy to change annually what you wish to support without the lengthy or costly legal work this would involve if you set up your own trust.
When a fund is established with Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Community Foundation, we guarantee that every time a grant is approved from any fund, that each applicant has been through our strict 7-stage selection process, making sure that every single applicant is eligible for support. These 7 stages are:
Applicant assessment - each person or group wishing to apply is asked to fill out a detailed questionnaire, especially designed to be easy and straightforward to complete, whilst getting the information we need to make informed decisions. Help and practical support is always available to applicants from foundation staff and our dedicated outreach support service staff, who will work alongside groups helping them develop their ideas and complete the forms if required.
Financial checks - for groups, we always investigate whether they’re solvent, are sitting on large amounts of their own money, or have any deficits that are not being adequately addressed. This is vital to ensure your money is used correctly by an organisation with the skills to financially manage the project. For individuals, we make sure that their ideas are costed out appropriately and they are genuinely in need of financial assistance.
A cast-iron constitution - to ensure that the group is well governed and run effectively, we insist that they have a set of rules outlining their responsibilities and area of work. We check that they are democratic, and legal, working to help good causes rather than themselves. Where applications are received from new, emerging groups who often don’t have all the necessary structures and policies in place, we ensure that they work with their local Council for Voluntary Service on their development, and also offer help and advice ourselves
Policies to protect - we ensure that comprehensive child protection (safeguarding), equal opportunities, and health and safety policies and practices are in place, so fundholders are assured that projects and the Foundation have children and vulnerable people’s best interests and welfare at heart. Hopefully, this helps them to avoid incidents, but should one occur the applicants are trained and equipped to deal effectively with the situation.
Safeguards - in order to safeguard your interests, a set number of compulsory checks are carried out to ascertain that an applicant is genuine and in real need of your support, ensuring your Fund is only used for what it is intended.
Interviewed - once all of the above stages have been satisfied, the applicants are interviewed by telephone or are visited, and we will review their application and explore their ideas in more depth (we are looking for good ideas and the ability to deliver, not just applicants who are good at filling in forms).
Applicants eligibility - it is only after this detailed assessment process that we put applications forward to the relevant community based grants panel or individual fund holder for a decision. Panel members/ fund holders are provided with a detailed application summary, and can be confident that the proceeses detailed above have been completed and that they are in a position to make an informed decision on whether to award a grant.
By making sure we go through this process every time we can guarantee every person/ project put forward for consideration is eligible for support. In addition, by sticking to this procedure with every application we can ensure that funds are unlikely to be misused, and that all applications have gone through a transparent, consistent and equitable process.
Monitoring and impact evaluation
Once a grant has been awarded, all applicants are required to sign a contract and commit to providing information on how the grant is being spent, and telling us what impact the grant is having on the community and individuals they are working with. All projects have to complete and return monitoring forms, and the Foundation garuntees to visit all projects and see first hand whats happening - and fundholders can also undertake visits to projects they have supported as well. In addition, the Foundation works alongside projects on an ongoing basis providing advcie and support, and identifying other bodies that can help in the future. Our ongoing realtionship with projects and being more than a ‘distant’ grant giver is very important to the Foundation and the fundholders we work with.
Our Commitment To Fundholders:
When a named endowment fund or revenue grants fund is established with Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Community Foundation, we make the following commitment to fundholders:
Direct access to thousands of local charities and worthwhile causes-Working with the Foundation gives fundholders access to thousands of local charities and people in need. Using our knowledge and expertise will help identify worthwhile local causes, saving you considerable time, energy and money in your search
Regular information in the style you choose - Fundholders are kept up-to-date on the projects they have supported, and can choose to receive regular updates in a variety of different formats to suit their needs, even visiting projects so they can see first-hand the boost their support has given local communities. This gives fundholders confidence that their money is being spent in the most effective way possible.
You set the terms of your fund - Right at the start of our relationship with fundholders, we jointly agree and set out the guidelines for how the fund is to be run, and the type of people or groups to whom the grants are to be allocated, giving fundholders complete control and security in knowing their money is only ever going to be given to the very people they want to help.
Increase your funds value by as much as 40% from the taxman - All funds placed into endowment (including legacies) can be made in the most tax efficient way available. The foundation will advise you on the most financially effective way for you to make a donation, leaving fundholders to concentrate on the difference they want their donation to make and how they want their gift to be used.
You stay in the driving seat if you want to - Fundholders can have as much, or as little, involvement in the decision making process as they wish. They can either take advantage of our professional expertise, receiving a comprehensive assessment of the charitable options available to them, or they can simply leave the Foundation to make the decision on their behalf, safe in the knowledge that the foundation will only work within the guidelines jointly agreed. Either way, fundholders stay in control.
Avoiding red tape and solicitors bills, the easy way! - By setting up your charitable trust through the Foundation, fundholders will save themselves thousands of pounds in legal fees and 'red tape' , they can be helping people or projects within just a few days. We take over all the legal responsibilities and liabilities for running the fund and complying with charity law - all fundholders have to do is read and sign the paper work, saving them the task of completing lengthy annual returns from the Charity Commission or having to prepare their own accounts.
Making sure your money benefits from expert investment advice - All funds are wisely and prudently invested through an expert Investment Manager (currently Coutts) . Detail on the funds performance, which is continuously monitored by our board, is provided regularly to the fundholder.
The lowest management fees, guaranteed - To make sure the maximum amount of your money is spent on good causes, you will only pay a one off 10% charge for administration on donations to your named endowment fund and low rates for other types of fund management. All this is done without your support being diverted into costly charity management and administration costs.
A steady hand at the helm - All funds and the Foundation are managed with the highest level of integrity and standards of governance, our Trustees meet regularly to discuss and monitor any activity so that any decisions are only made in fundholders (and the publics) best interests so that the fund will continue to help good causes for many generations to come.
Professional service - The staff at the Foundation are dedicated to managing funds in a thorough and professional manner, fundholders can rely on us to honour their wishes and ensure that grants from their fund are only made to groups and individuals that meet set criteria.
Once a fund is set up, fundholders can be assured that every grant given from their fund will be addressing a real need, because the Foundations garuntees that we thoroughly assess each application received.
About Us
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