Tees Valley Community Foundation

Tees Valley Community Foundation, known as The Tees Foundation, drives positive change by connecting philanthropic donors to grassroots initiatives tackling poverty, social exclusion, and community disadvantage across Tees Valley. Rooted in values of local empowerment, partnership across sectors, responsive grantmaking, and transparent stewardship, it champions community-led solutions that build resilience, enrich lives, and address urgent needs through flexible support for small charities. Believing lasting impact arises from investing in grassroots innovation, capacity building, and authentic local leadership, it prioritizes projects fostering equity, opportunity, and long-term wellbeing for deprived communities.

It funds poverty alleviation including food provision, fuel poverty relief, and winter hardship support for families facing food insecurity and rising living costs; health and wellbeing services such as mental health provision, counselling, and therapeutic activities in schools for children and young people experiencing anxiety or isolation; employment and skills development like training, mentoring, and employability programs for youth facing unemployment barriers; youth and family projects encompassing after-school clubs, family support, carer respite, and early intervention for vulnerable children at risk of exclusion; elderly care addressing isolation through befriending, social inclusion, and volunteering opportunities; community development via grassroots sports, cultural activities, peer support groups, and capital improvements strengthening social infrastructure and cohesion. Supported interventions emphasize preventative approaches, community-led outreach, person-centred services, and holistic solutions creating opportunities in education, employment, and social connection for beneficiaries including children and young people aged 5-19, families in crisis, older people, and deprived communities battling economic hardship.

Exclusions encompass national organizations lacking local roots, projects outside Tees Valley's deprived boroughs, duplicative services, or non-charitable activities; it avoids statutory replacements or individual endowments. Distinctive for deep Tees Valley embedding, crisis-responsive flexibility like energy poverty funds, preference for small VCSE groups with lived experience leadership, and focus on grassroots tackling entrenched disadvantage, it uniquely bridges donors to hyper-local charities delivering practical relief, capacity building, and resilience for isolated elderly, care-experienced youth, low-income families, and communities fostering self-sufficiency.