TopicUk Business Magazine

Community Foundation for Calderdale achieves quality accreditation

The Editor -

Over the past year the Community Foundation for Calderdale has had an internal audit of its policies and procedures, compiled a submission of documents for external review and participated in interviews with an independent assessor.

The assessment, which was carried out by Ideas to Impact, evaluated the ongoing practices and development trajectory of the Community Foundation for Calderdale within Core Standards on governance, finance, philanthropy, grant-making, community participation and organisational development. The programme is unique to the UK Community Foundations (UKCF) network, providing the only accreditation process internationally that is tailored to and designed by community foundations.

The Quality Accreditation assessment has revealed that:

  • The value of grant-making in the UKCF network more than doubled during the Covid-19 Pandemic
  • Total community foundation endowment across the membership has grown by 30% since QA4 in 2017
  • The highest average score QA5 was in the Core Standard on effective emergency response, reflecting the exceptional skill community foundations displayed in rapidly activating local philanthropy and delivering funding to support community-led responses to crisis.

John Gordon, Chair of the QA Committee explained, “We have seen community foundations throughout the UK raise their game and clearly demonstrate a high standard of governance, administration and financial diligence through external assessment across all ranges of team size and capacity”

Rosemary Macdonald, CEO of UKCF added, “It is a mark of the commitment and diligence of our members that they have completed this rigorous accreditation process at the same time as distributing record-breaking levels of funding to their communities.”

Steve Duncan, CEO of the Community Foundation added, “Our Quality Accreditation will last for three years confirms that we have the capacity to deliver grants and programmes. I’d like to thank all of the Community Foundation family for their contribution on a day to day basis which showed in our assessment that we utilise our resources as effectively as possible to listen, support and advocate for our community.”