New Arbor Vitae Fund Puts £50,000 Into Dorset Small Groups

A charity that was only registered last December is putting £50,000 into small community groups and young people in Dorset, by handing the work of finding and checking them to Dorset Community Foundation.

The Arbor Vitae Foundation has set up the Arbor Vitae Fund with DCF. The money goes into two of DCF’s existing programmes:

• the Neighbourhood Fund, which gives small groups grants of up to £5,000;
• the DCF Bursary, which covers up to £1,000 of course costs for young people studying vocational courses at college or sixth form college.

Why a new charity is not doing it alone

Arbor Vitae says its aims are education, health and the arts in Dorset. Its Operations Trustee, Paul Cartwright, said the size of the charity was the reason for the partnership.

“We only received charitable status last December and have five trustees, so for us it’s a question of how we use our time most efficiently towards meeting our aims,” he said.

“We aim to make maybe one or two carefully selected, significant grants every year, but that might mean a lot of smaller charities and smaller grants miss out. One of the most attractive things about DCF is that it will focus on grants typically up to £5,000, so we are able to support those smaller groups, as well as our own flagship projects.”

DCF advertises its grant programmes, assesses the applications, and then an independent grant panel decides the awards. It monitors each grant to check the money is spent as intended and reports back to the donor.

That checking was a large part of the appeal, Mr Cartwright said. “We don’t have the broad breadth of contacts that DCF has, so its understanding of need in Dorset is far better than ours. That understanding was one of the key reasons we wanted to work with it.

“Monitoring reports are important because they are part of our due diligence, and it’s precisely the thing that we don’t have the time to do ourselves for a lot of smaller projects.”

A youth theatre at Lighthouse, and a call to music leaders

The fund is the foundation’s third major project. It is paying for Lighthouse Poole to launch a new youth theatre, giving young people drama education, the chance to take part in an annual stage showcase, ticket discounts, backstage tours and specialist workshops.

It has also invited music leaders across Dorset to propose ways of expanding musical opportunities for people of all ages, with an emphasis on local need and lasting impact.

“These are two major funding projects that meet the aims of the foundation and working with DCF is the third,” Mr Cartwright said. “We are looking forward to seeing how our DCF collaboration works and if it does work, we have got an exciting future.”

Demand outran the money this year

Gareth Owens, DCF’s Director of Philanthropy, said the Neighbourhood Fund had been oversubscribed.

“This year we have awarded more than £200,000 to 60 small community groups through our Neighbourhood Fund but the demand was higher, so it is wonderful that Arbor Vitae is supporting us,” he said.

“The Arbor Vitae Fund will support many projects where small grants can really make a huge difference and we look forward to sharing those stories.”

How to apply

Groups and students do not apply to Arbor Vitae directly: the money is given out through DCF’s own Neighbourhood Fund and Bursary rounds, which the foundation advertises on dorsetcommunityfoundation.org. DCF is a registered charity, number 1122113.

There is no separate Arbor Vitae round. DCF said the fund is being folded into the Neighbourhood Fund pot, which gives out about £200,000 in grants over a year, so groups applying in the next Neighbourhood Fund round will be bidding for money that includes it.

The foundation has helped other people in the county this autumn: a £1,495 grant to a Dorchester cleaning business and support for Poole rower Lexi Gill on her way to the Youth Olympics.