Wiltshire charity celebrates huge grant giving milestone
The foundation have now given £30 million in grants
A Wiltshire charity are celebrating surpassing £30 million in grant giving over their 51-year history. The Wiltshire and Swindon Community Foundation help fund projects to tackle causes such as poverty, isolation, domestic abuse and mental health.
The milestone was reached after their latest round of grants saw £399,950 given through their University Bursary Programme, which helps 71 young people access higher education.
In 2025, the charity awarded 367 grants which they estimate will have benefited over 80,000 people, of all ages.
Beth Maughan, Head of Communications and Marketing for the charity, said: "People don't realise just how much community groups do, and how much of a difference they make daily. So whether it's a group who might be running a bereavement café for somebody who has been sat at home suffering from grief, and not knowing where to go. There's a group out there that we funded that will deliver vital services for them.
"For an older person isolated in a local rural village, the fact that there's transport to get them to an art club where they can go and mix with other people has a massive impact on their life."
Each year they give around £2.5 million in grants to the local voluntary sector, with the money being donations from individuals and organisations. "We not the heroes, we are the connector. So the reason we can give this money out is because of the brilliant people across the county who donate to us.
So whether that's individuals that give money to us, corporates, people that partner with us. The heroes on the other side are the community groups who are actually delivering this work, day in, day out, running these clubs which are such a vital lifeline for people across Wiltshire and Swindon."
51 years ago they were the first community foundation to be established in the UK and Europe, now there are 47, distributing more than 300,000 grants each year.
Beth said: "It is a wonderful collective achievement and we all feel really proud of it. But we are so ambitious, we are ambitious for Wiltshire and Swindon, and we're ambitious to be around here for the next 50 years."