We often talk about charity as kindness. Generosity. Doing your bit.
But what if we saw local giving as something more? As strategy. As infrastructure. As a deliberate investment in the resilience of our communities.
That’s the shift the Give Together, Give Local campaign invites us to make.
As a trustee of the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Community Foundation (HIWCF), I’ve had a front-row seat to how grassroots funding transforms lives. But I’ve also seen the unmet needs. The widening gaps. The local organisations stretched too thin. And I’ve come to believe this: collective giving isn’t just a feel-good choice – it’s a necessity.
Understanding What Our Communities Are Up Against
In Hampshire and the Isle of Wight today:
- Youth mental health is spiralling. Self-harm admissions among 10–24-year-olds now exceed 574 per 100,000, and 3.6% of school-aged children are navigating serious emotional or social challenges.1
- Opportunity is still postcode-dependent. Over 5% of 16–17-year-olds are NEET (not in education, employment or training).2 More than 3,000 families with children have required homelessness prevention support.3
- Health inequalities remain stark. Life expectancy and access to care vary dramatically between districts, driven by persistent social and economic divides.4
These aren’t abstract figures. They’re daily realities for neighbours, colleagues, and the unseen heroes running food banks, support groups, and youth services, all of whom often on shoestring budgets.
What Local Philanthropy Really Enables
This is where Give Together, Give Local matters. At its heart, it’s about coordination. Scale. Trust.
- Coordination: Individual donations are pooled into HIWCF’s four Impact Funds, each designed to target specific, evidence-based needs: Poverty & Inequality, Employability & Skills, Health & Wellbeing, and Flourishing Communities.
- Scale: No single donor can meet every need but together, we unlock reach and relevance, supporting more organisations across Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton, and the Isle of Wight.
- Trust: HIWCF brings decades of experience in due diligence, partnership, and fair distribution. Every grant is a calculated act of progress, not a shot in the dark.
The Strategic Case for Giving Together
In business, we talk about impact, outcomes, return on investment.
Community philanthropy deserves the same rigour.
When you give collectively through HIWCF, you’re not just making a donation – you’re choosing a smarter way to invest in your region’s stability. You’re helping prevent crisis before it escalates. You’re enabling grassroots responses to root-cause problems. You’re reinforcing the community fabric, economically, socially, and emotionally.
Put simply: you’re strengthening the systems that strengthen society.
Why Now? Because the Consequences of Delay Are Local Too
Rising costs, social fragmentation, and the aftershocks of the pandemic have left many of our local systems threadbare. This is not a moment for passive generosity. It’s a moment for intentional action.
So if you care about resilience, not just recovery, now’s the time to act.
👉 Be part of Give Together, Give Local
Together, we can shape a fairer future; one investment at a time.
Footnotes
1 2 Hampshire & Isle of Wight Police and Crime Commissioner. (2024). Young People Strategic Needs Assessment. Retrieved from https://www.hampshire-pcc.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Young-People-Strategic-Need-Assessment-11.10.2024.pdf
3 Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. (2024). Statutory Homelessness Live Tables. Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness
4 Hampshire County Council. (2024). Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (Healthy Lives). Retrieved from https://www.hants.gov.uk/socialcareandhealth/publichealth/jsna/2024-healthy-lives
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