Focus on FOCUS K&C

Each May, the Mayor of the Royal Borough selects a local charity to support during his or her mayoral year. Until now these have been traditional organisations  doing direct charitable work, but this year’s Mayor, Cllr Timothy Coleridge, has chosen one that works very differently: FOCUS K&C. This edition of RBKC Direct looks at FOCUS K&C and its approach to charity work.

The background to FOCUS K&C

Although many local residents are very generous towards national and international causes, few are aware of what is being done to address needs in their own neighbourhoods.

Today more than 400, mainly small, local charities operate in Kensington and Chelsea. They provide activities for young people, reach out to excluded minorities, house the homeless, look after the elderly, support the disabled, address drug abuse and health issues, bring the arts to life and help conserve the environment.  They make an enormous difference to the lives of local people and FOCUS K&C has been set up to help keep them in business.

How does it work?

FOCUS K&C provides information to local residents about local charities and builds relationships between donors and the charities they support. They help them choose charities where their gifts will achieve the maximum impact, they show them at first hand the benefits of their giving and they give them the opportunity to add further value through volunteering.

As FOCUS K&C’s own costs are low and are supported by the Council and other agencies, it passes 100 per cent of the donations it receives to borough charities.

FOCUS K&C also:

• monitors grants and reports to donors on their impact
• increases the value of donations by taking advantage of matching funds from government and other sources
• helps donors maximise tax-efficient giving
• gives donors opportunities to share knowledge and experience at regular events.

FOCUS K&C is also working with a number of borough schools that have adopted it as their charity of the year. As well as raising funds through pupils and their parents, FOCUS K&C is helping these schools to engage with the work of individual charities and the problems their beneficiaries face.

FOCUS K&C helps donors achieve more together than they could individually, bringing together business leaders, residents, schools, churches, development agencies and others to make things happen across the borough.

As well as generating funding for local charities, assisted by generous government incentives that can double and even treble the value of gifts, FOCUS K&C is building an endowment fund that will in time help to provide a more permanent means of funding for charities.

“Donors want to know their money is being spent well and on the genuinely needy. FOCUS K&C is the answer to these difficulties,” explained the Mayor, Cllr Tim Coleridge.

Visit www.focuskc.com or contact the charity’s director by telephone on 020 7243 9806, or by email: jraphaely@focuskc.com

What do you think?

Do you think the local knowledge, experience and safeguards provided by a community foundation make you more likely to give to a small local charity than to a national  household name?  Email your comments to rbkcdirect@rbkc.gov.uk