News story: Alternative ways to support your community or a good cause
There are over 160,000 registered charities in England and Wales and many more unregistered charities. Setting up and running a charity takes a lot of work.
If you want to help your local community but don’t have lots of spare time to run a charity, you could consider setting up a fund with a Community Foundation instead.
UK Community Foundations are local grant-making organisations. They can help you:
- work out where your local community needs support
- identify local groups that are already meeting these needs
- decide how to use donations strategically and effectively
A Community Foundation trust may be more appropriate than a charity if the cause you’re helping will be relatively short-lived, for example restoring a forest after a storm.
To set up a Community Foundation trust, contact:
Mark Doherty
UKCF Operations Manager
mdoherty@ukcommunityfoundationms.org
020 7713 9326
If you want to support an international cause, such as raising funds for a disaster outside the UK, a new charity might not be the best option. Find out more about how to donate and volunteer to aid humanitarian disasters.