Working with Anchor
In this multi-year partnership with Anchor, we provided core funding to communities around England that bring people together through food.
The Anchor Community Connection Fund
From the heart of the West Country, Anchor Butter was created in Westbury, Wiltshire. The company has been churning milk and salt since 1886 with only two ingredients - milk and salt - used in their delicious blocks of butter.
Eaten and loved by British families and created using milk from British farms, the quality and deliciousness of Anchor butter products are rooted in their Britishness. Anchor is primarily farmer-owned, and all products come from the sunny green hills of Westbury, Wiltshire, managed by British hard-working farmers and their families.
(The Pantry, Wiltshire)
About the partnership
UK Community Foundations partnered with Anchor to deliver a multi-year programme from 2021 to 2025.
Together, we supported community organisations that bring people together through food-related activities in Swindon, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire, Leeds, Devon, Lancashire, Merseyside, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Rutland and London.
These projects included a wide range of food related activities, including cookery classes, cake clubs, cookery classes, youth cafes, food education programmes, ongoing support projects for vulnerable community members, food hubs and many more – all successfully achieving the aim of bringing people together through food.
The local impact
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£250,000 in donations in total
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66 community-led organisations supported
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11 areas throughout England involved
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An average grant size of £3,800
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Core costs and flexible decision making made this fund more effective
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Refugees and asylum seekers, older people, young parents, children and young people, people with disabilities, people experiencing loneliness, people living in isolation, and people experiencing homelessness have all been supported through the funded local services
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Activities included cookery classes, community lunches, foodbank provisions, vegetable growing, nutritional education, community centre core costs - such as fridges and coffee machines
“There should be more funds like this to support small organisations like us working within an area of deprivation who are doing the best we can for our local community.”
– Kingswood Neighbourhood Centre, Northamptonshire
“Building a new life in the UK does not mean that people want to completely abandon everything from their past. Sharing food and eating together is a means of reconnecting with their cultures and the life and families that they left behind.
"Food parcels also offer a little bit of hope – it affirms that someone in the world cares and that the person is not completely alone.”
– The Harbour Project, Swindon (pictured below)
“With your funding we have run 23 community meal sessions in which volunteers have collected surplus food, created a menu from ingredients provided, cooked a three-course meal, and served to our guests.
"Guests are typically people who are struggling with food poverty and/or loneliness. In total volunteers have:
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provided 591 three course meals,
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handed out 172 takeaway meals and
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used over 400kgs of surplus food.”
– FoodCycle, Northamptonshire
“The Opening Doors has truly opened doors to my happiness and wellbeing. I have a wonderful healthy two course meal, which helps save my food costs. It's also great to be with people and make new friends.”
“This place is just fantastic, we love it.”
“It is just like family.”
– The Opening Doors Project, Liverpool (pictured below)
Why core funding works best
Anchor wanted to be led by the communities it cares about around the country. To make the most impact, this fund provided core resources to community groups rather than having specific project-targeted instructions.
This type of funding works incredibly well on many levels. It enables community foundations to talk with local groups about the big issues their service users are experiencing, identifying how the funding will be most helpful to the area they support. It also empowers local groups to decide for themselves what they want the resources to go towards, to plan more strategically and think more creatively about the impact they want to have in the longer term.
Throughout this partnership, we found that social isolation and immobility has remained a large issue for people in the years following the pandemic. The groups that support elderly people, people with additional or complex needs, minoritised communities and low-income households, have used food as a way of checking in on their community members.
Connecting through food can provide a chance for friendly conversation with someone who is experiencing loneliness, connect bereaved people with counselling opportunities and ensure visitors have had at least one nutritious meal in their day. This frontline work needs long-term support from funders and plays a significant role in preventative care for the community.
One of our Anchor-funded projects, The Community Lunch in Buckinghamshire, warmly invited us to one of their sessions to explore the impact of their inclusive lunch service to the community:
Interested in supporting UK communities?
Our network reaches communities in every part of the UK. If you would like to know more about our national partnerships or support a cause close to your organisation's heart, get in touch!