Faringdon United Charity CIO

Faringdon United Charity CIO upholds a longstanding mission to alleviate need, hardship, and distress through targeted, flexible support for local residents unable to access statutory services, embodying values of neighbourly compassion, localism, stewardship, and community-rooted welfare. Their grantmaking philosophy prioritizes practical interventions fostering dignity, empowerment, and resilience, driven by a belief that tangible, immediate aid from trusted local trustees prevents escalation of poverty and isolation while strengthening community safety nets via partnerships with schools, social workers, health visitors, and frontline agencies.

They fund essential poverty relief including food parcels and food insecurity programs via foodbanks, household equipment like fridge freezers and washing machines for families in crisis, educational support through computers and resources for children and young people facing barriers, health-related assistance for infirm individuals with medical needs or complex health needs, and grants to local organisations delivering day centre services for elderly residents experiencing isolation, youth work via after-school clubs and activities through groups like YoCo and Faze, community advice and advocacy via Citizens Advice Bureau, and core costs or equipment for resilience-building wellbeing activities. Supported interventions encompass emergency relief, respite-like practical aid, person-centred direct financial help, and community-led social support addressing special needs, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, family carer burdens, and social isolation among children, young people, elderly, disabled people, and families in hardship.

They exclude non-charitable purposes or aid outside their defined rural Oxfordshire parish communities, focusing solely on local residents and organisations with proven tangible impact on need or poverty. Distinctive for historical depth as an enduring local safety net, they prioritise elderly infirmity, child and youth educational disadvantage, medical hardship, and voluntary sector infrastructure in underserved parishes like Faringdon environs, favouring responsive, inclusive grassroots responses over thematic or national scopes, with emphasis on holistic, preventative quality-of-life improvements through professional referrals and one-off empowerment grants.