Hello and welcome to your first newsletter of 2020! We’ve had a busy start to the year at DCF and have already celebrated the appointment of 5 new staff, a new Chair of Trustees and a work birthday for Scott, our Philanthropy Director who has now been with us for 5 years. We’ve also secured a new funding programme centred around the mental wellbeing of children and made friends with 5 new partners that we’re going to be working with to deliver it. What with all that, and a grants and website revamp underway there’s plenty to keep us busy here! In this newsletter, we’ll take a closer look at some of these stories as well as bringing you our usual features, together with the scoop behind our new hashtag #GiveLoveDevon. (Read that here!)
Our new staff are practically queuing up to take part in our ‘Who’s Who’ feature, where we get to know a little bit more about our team members for some tea-break entertainment. First in, here’s Sally….
Name: Sally Clements
Team: Working across the Community and Philanthropy teams
Job Title: Project Coordinator
What that means: “To support and develop programmes, projects and the wider organisation”. Girl Friday? Three weeks in, this has meant putting plans into action for a new fund supporting young people’s mental health and wellbeing across Devon, progressing recruitment of new Community Builder posts in Tiverton and thinking about definitions of eligibility as part of the grants review.
Your background: Thirty years working with young people and families in community and education settings. Previously employed in regional and national roles including at Arts Council England, Youth Music and Catch22 alongside developing a freelance career that involves supporting arts and cultural organisations to make sense of their work and build their engagement programmes and as a trainer and moderator for the Arts Award qualification. I continue to do this when not at DCF and am proud to be vice chair of the regional BBC Children in Need committee.
Favourite bit about your job (so far!): Getting to know everyone in the team and being made to feel so welcome. I also loved being thrown in the deep end interviewing staff from over 30 charities in Devon, hearing about the amazing work they are doing to support young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
Outside of work: : I potter – in the garden, in the kitchen…whilst waiting for the next call to provide the in-house teenage taxi service. I can be found walking the dog along the Grand Western Canal (to escape teenagers) and trying to catch a moment to draw or paint my next masterpiece.
Find out about our other team members here.
Did you know?
- The funds we look after come from a wide range of sources, and our donors come in all shapes and sizes.
- We presently hold over 45 funds that range in the amount of money they distribute in grants.
- Our funds each have their own criteria – aiming to offer financial help across our 9 community themes.
- Our funds operate in one of two ways. FLOW THROUGH – where funds ‘flow’ straight through us into grants and ENDOWMENT – where funds are invested and the return in interest is used for grants.
Read on to discover the story behind our newest fund working to improve the mental health of children and young people in Devon.
Fund Focus
Find out more about the funds that we administer at DCF – who’s behind them and what they’re for.
This particular fund is rather unusual for us in it’s delivery. Find out why here..
The Mohn Westlake Foundation was established in 2016…
…by Marit Mohn and her son Stian Westlake following the sale of their stake in the family ship-pump manufacturing Company, Frank Mohn AS of Norway. The Mohns are well known among Norwegians for their philanthropic activity which also extends to other countries, including the UK, where they both now live and work.
Their other charitable endeavours include projects supporting education, healthcare and community development – a London housing association, a legal centre charity, a South African charity helping children leaving care, and a Norwegian research foundation.
Read the full story here.
A Piece of the Stories…
Thanks to the generosity of our donors we’re able to help fund hundreds of groups in Devon every year. We’re proud to champion their success in supporting individuals and families as well as helping build better communities all across our region.
How do you go from being unable to cope with a full session of a theatre workshop, to performing a play (of Shakespeare’s own writing, no less) on stage, for three nights, in front of audiences exceeding 300 people?
Animate Theatre, that’s how. They told us: “Animate takes pride in giving everyone a voice where they haven’t always had one.” And the proof of that came when they got to telling us how they spent a £1,500 grant of our making.
Animate Theatre works with people with and without disabilities, teaching skills in theatre and performance. Based in Plymouth, they offer their members the chance to attend workshops and take part in showcases of this work. The purpose of these activities is not only to experience the joy of performing, but to help Animate’s participants to grow both in confidence and independence, helping them overcome not just the challenges facing them on stage, but more generally too, in everyday life.
Read the full story here.
Getting Personal
Dinah Cox and I are discussing the paths that have led us to this particular point in our lives. I’m not, of course, referring to the sipping of tea and chatting at a quiet bar for the purposes of this article, but to Dinah’s recent appointment as Chair of Trustees for Devon Community Foundation, and my more recent introduction to the voluntary sector, to the lives being led by the people it supports and the inequalities that they face.
Inequality is the main force behind everything that Dinah has achieved so far, and one, it transpired, that her eyes were opened to at a very early age.
“I remember being 5 years old at school and there was a kid in our class who had hearing aids – the big old-fashioned ones – and I would play with him. One day he came to tea and I remember his mum saying to my mum ‘Oh she’s so nice, she will play with him – lots of other kids won’t’ and I didn’t understand why. Alright, he communicated in the way that some deaf people do, but that was my first inkling that society wasn’t fair or nice or kind, I think.”
Read the full interview here.
Call to Grants…
Grant: Recovery Devon Development Fund
Amount available: Up to £750
For: Recovery from mental ill-health
Where: Devon excluding Plymouth
When: Closes 5pm Friday 28th February 2020
Find out more.
Grant: Aviva Community Fund
Amount available: Up to £50,000 to match crowd-funding
For: Community resilience & financial capacity and inclusion
Where: UK wide
When: Every three months
Find out more.
Grant: The Woodward Charitable Trust
Amount available: Up to £1,000
For: Children’s summer playschemes
Where: UK wide
When: Closes noon Friday 3rd April 2020
Find out more.
Devon County Council: A free subscription service that provides the latest information on funding opportunities to support business, environmental and social projects in Devon. Sign up here.
Grin: A range of resources for not-for-profits seeking funding, that includes paid-for grants bulletins and databases. See more here.
Please note that we are currently closed for applications whilst we carry out our Grants Review. Click here for more information.
Thanks for reading!
To get our latest newsletters straight to your inbox why not subscribe to our mailing list here.
Don’t forget to follow our social media channels to keep up to date with all our goings on!
Recent Comments