After living and working all over the world, Matthew Bowcock sold his technology start-up company and moved to Surrey. He had no ties or roots there and, by his own admission, he knew nothing about the local community or its needs
"After selling my business in 2000, my wife and I set up a charitable foundation. Our initial giving was not particularly satisfying, not through want of good causes to support, but because it was passive, reactive giving. “
Until he started to actively support local charitable projects, Matthew says “there were places I never knew existed – a housing estate down the end of a road just past our house, for example.” But he did not find it easy to uncover causes and projects.
“To begin with, I found it very, very difficult to give our money away in Surrey. It was not until I started to understand the concept of a community foundation that I actually started to find the groups to get involved with. Giving away money is much, much harder than people think. First, a range of different projects were brought to us and I began to understand a lot more about my local community. For instance, we've funded a project at our local sailing club which sent instructors on a training course to coach them how to teach disabled kids. We've also funded the purchase of computers in the local community centre. These are wonderful projects which were right on our doorstep that I wasn't even aware of.
"I've also come to meet some extraordinary people in the community, people with enormous tenacity and commitment to the cause. One of the key strengths of community foundations is connecting the 'do-ers' with the donors. They are able to open the eyes of donors to opportunities where they can have an effect and trigger their involvement in projects and they can also help to make the distribution of wealth through philanthropy be effective, just and directed to where the need is."