The Hambledon Community Fund contributes to village community life by awarding grants to local organisations to help deliver projects, services and improvements that respond to local needs. Managed under the umbrella of the Community Foundation for Surrey, the Fund is part of a network of borough, town and village Area Funds across Surrey.

The latest impact report gives an overview of the recent activities of HCF. You may be interested in an explanation of how the Hambledon Community Fund is financed – detail below.

Finances explained!  

Hambledon Community Fund chair, Debbie Calverley, explains how funding is sustained to provide small grants to village organisations.

Investments

Hambledon Community Fund owns some stock market investments, the proceeds from which are used to provide small grants to Hambledon village organisations. 

Our umbrella organisation, Community Foundation for Surrey (CFSurrey), employs professional fund managers to manage the investments on behalf of Hambledon Community Fund and other so-called ‘area funds’ in the towns and villages of Surrey such as Guidford, Haslemere and Chiddingfold.

Our investment funds were previously worth over £200,000 but recently they have dropped in value to around £175,000. This is mainly because the funds are re-valued only once a year on 31 March and at that time of year, over the last few years, the markets have dipped mainly thanks to The Donald (trade tariffs, Iran war etc ) even though they may have recovered during the year.

Income

Investment draw-down
Hambledon Community Fund has two investment funds from which money is drawn down into our ‘grant pot’ at a rate set by the trustees of each Fund:

Community First Fund: draw-down is usually £3,000 to £4,000 annually
Grassroots Fund: draw-down totals £2,000 to £2,250 per year

Dividends and donations
Dividends are paid quarterly with an annual total of between £6,500 and £7,750. 
Also we sometimes receive donations from generous villagers which, along with gift aid (CFSurrey is a charity), boosts our balance for making grants.

Expenditure

Fund management fees
We are charged fees by CFSurrey for managing our investments and for managing the grant process. This amounts to around £5,000 annually, money well spent I think.

Grant awards

The other outgoing is, of course, grant awards and the Hambledon Community Fund Panel – comprising representatives of 10 different organisations in village – usually award 4 to 6 grants per year totalling around £10,000. 

Money available for grants

In conclusion, our annual income can be as much as £15,000 and expenditure is also around £15,000. The aim is to break even each year using available funds for the benefit of the village. 

In this way, although we are tied to the ups and downs of the stock market to a certain extent, the funding is long term and sustainable. 

Since its inception, the Hambledon Community Fund has awarded grants totalling over £125,000. So far this year we have awarded grants to the Nursery School, Almshouses, Village Hall and Cricket Club (more information next time).