This week the Community Wealth Fund Alliance held a parliamentary reception to celebrate the continued progress of the campaign, which will shortly be entering its seventh year.   

The event was hosted in the Thames Pavilion by Noah Law MP, and it was a pleasure to be joined on the day by a wide range of parliamentarians, members of the Community Wealth Fund Alliance, representatives from Big Local areas and colleagues from across the voluntary and community sector.  

Over recent years, the Community Wealth Fund Alliance has worked to ensure that funds from the next wave of dormant assets are committed to rebuilding social infrastructure in the most deprived communities. In October, the Alliance marked a major milestone by reaching its 800th member.  

Attendees at the event we were welcomed by sponsoring MP Noah Law and Matt Leach, Chief Executive at Local Trust, founding member and secretariat to the Alliance. There were also speeches from longtime supporter of the campaign Lord Bassam of Brighton, newly-appointed Head of Community Wealth Fund at the National Lottery Community Fund Samantha Jones and Barbara Slasor, community development lead for the Gaunless Gateway Big Local partnership.  

During the speeches, we heard the exciting announcement that The National Lottery Community Fund will be contributing £87.5 million to the Community Wealth Fund, matching funds allocated from England’s Dormant Assets Scheme over 2024-28 to take the total to £175 million.  

As we await the government’s upcoming announcement on the design and delivery of the Fund, the Alliance is calling on the government to expand the Community Wealth Fund and return it to the campaign’s original principles by targeting the doubly disadvantaged communities that need it most.  

 

The Community Wealth Fund Alliance is calling for: 

  1. A refocusing of CWF funds back to deprived communities with low social infrastructure  
  2. A 10-year commitment to an equal share of dormant asset funding for the CWF, which reflects the most realistic timeframe for supporting community development approaches in our most deprived communities  
  3. An investigation into the practicalities of establishing an independently endowed delivery mechanism for the Fund, if necessary reviewing existing dormant asset distribution mechanics to enable this to happen. 
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