UKCF president Baroness Prashar has spoken in the House of Lords about community foundations and has called on the government to run another large match funding programme, following the success of the £130m Community First scheme.

Speaking in the Lords, she highlighted community foundations as the voluntary sector’s “best-kept secret” and urged officials to consider further match funding initiatives and ways of better leveraging local funding.

Her comments came during an afternoon debate held on June 11 2015, responding to an open letter on civic society published by the Church of England in the run-up to the general election.

‘Unashamedly’ stressing the vital importance of the community foundation model she said: “What I like about community foundations is the thinking that underpins them.

“It is about local engagement, local giving and bringing together donors and doers to support local communities to meet local needs.

“It is about building local social capital, inclusiveness, investing in local communities, empowering local communities and valuing community-led solutions to local issues.”

She went on to push the government to act on the recent successes of the Community First endowment match challenge, which raised a staggering£130 million for local causes. Under this scheme, the government matched donations to community foundations by 50 per cent.

She added: “If not, will the Government please consider looking at such schemes that lever local funds and engage local communities and that may contribute to our vision of one nation?”

The Baroness’ speech came on the back of discussions with UKCF about next steps following the success of Community First, and UKCF is now starting its lobbying for another match funding scheme.

Click here to read the Baroness’ speech in full.

UKCF is the umbrella organisation for all community foundations – visit their website here.