What are Community Benefit Funds (CBF)?

A CBF is a voluntary commitment by a developer to put money into a fund which is then made available to community projects. As these type of funds are relatively new there is currently no agreed format on how they should be managed leading to an inconsistent approach.

Community benefit payments enable communities to establish their own Community Funds that can vary in value and structure from a few thousand pounds to hundreds of thousands of pounds per year.

Managing Community Benefit Funds

We are a well-established grant maker having delivered over £10 million of funding and are audited and accredited to standards endorsed by the Charity Commission to ensure the quality of our service and accountability. We have developed extensive links with local community groups, organisations and networks and as a result,  have the capacity to deliver seamless grant making programmes which benefit those most in need and ensure maximum impact of funding.

Recently the Foundation celebrated the end of Dorset County Council Fund grants programme first launched in 2011 and deemed the biggest investment in voluntary service infrastructure. By working in partnership with Dorset County Council the charity distributed just over £1.2 million in funding to 264 local groups helping thousands of people.

Dorset Community Foundation is able to work with you, your representative and local people in your Parish to ensure an efficient process for creating the new CBF by undertaking:-

• Due diligence
• Grant-making
• Monitoring
• Social impact reporting
• Auditing
• Inclusion in our annual report
• Reporting to the charity commission

For more information please contact our contact our director Grant Robson on 01202 670815 or email him at grant@dorsetcf.org.