The Community Fund for Reigate and Banstead has granted a total of over £53,000 to local charities over the two years since its inception.

This is our own ‘local fund’ which relies upon philanthropic donations from local individuals and companies, including several large businesses, in order to donate grants to charities operating in a range of areas to address key local needs, specifically in Reigate and Banstead.

The past twelve months have been extremely active for The Fund, responding to the many urgent needs of local charities to help them address the fall-out from the Coronavirus pandemic.

Since May 2020, The Fund has benefited from being the chosen charity of the Mayor of Reigate and Banstead. During her mayoral year, all charitable funds that the Mayor and her team raise will go into The Community Fund for Reigate and Banstead. Not only has this helped raise the profile of the Fund, but it has also seen contributions from this source, including through the Mayor’s ‘Just Giving’ page, of several thousand pounds. Madam Mayor has also kindly arranged a sponsored walk and is looking at other initiatives to raise money for the Fund.

Information about the Fund can be found at https://www.cfsurrey.org.uk/fund/rbf/ which contains a ‘donations’ link so that any member of the public can easily donate however much they wish towards the Fund.

The Community Fund model of maintaining an Endowment Fund for future generations along with the Grants Fund has enabled the Fund to generate over £3,000 from investment income towards local grant-giving.

As always, The Fund is urgently looking for more donations, however large or small, so that it can help to address the growing local need that we face during these difficult times.

Reigate and Banstead Borough Council has kindly offered to ‘match-fund’ all donations received into the Fund between now and March 31 to a total of £6,000. This means that any donations received into the Fund, up to that amount, during that period, will be effectively doubled.

If you or any of your friends or contacts are interested to take advantage of this leveraged donation window of opportunity, to help with the current crisis locally, please donate online at https://www.cfsurrey.org.uk/fund/rbf/

For more information about the Fund. or contact the Chair of the Fund Panel at [email protected]

On a longer-term note, it would be great if local residents, that have the means, could think about an annual standing order of, say, £10-£20 if they cannot afford a larger donation. If we can encourage a large number of people to chip in a little, perhaps matched by local employers putting in £5 per employee, we would start something very powerful.

Our social infrastructure, sports clubs, arts, music, churches, all need refurbishing from time to time, and even new things added. With a large number of local residents chipping in what they can, over the coming years we can give ourselves the resources to do those extra things that are always a huge challenge for individuals running things on a voluntary basis especially as, proportionately, our part of Surrey does not receive as much as other areas of the country from national and regional charitable grant budgets.

Why not start now to get your donation matched by the Council? Please give it a thought.

I am optimistic that, over time, we can really make this a community fund that we are all invested in, and when our local voluntary organisations, clubs, or societies need help funding new services or projects, we will have endowed ourselves with the resources to fund these and make our locality even more special.