As well as weekly training sessions and league games, the organisation's volunteers try to act as mentors by helping the players with job applications, asylum applications and personal problems.

None of the 140 children — aged eight to 13 — who attend this buzzing club are old enough to know about the personal tragedy that drove the 48-year-old single mother to take it on in the first place. Fourteen years ago, her 16-year-old son Okera was knifed to death by a teenager while he was playing in the street with friends. Ms Clarke, who was completing a psychology course at Thames Valley University and also raising her four younger children, then aged one to 14, tried to cope with her loss by volunteering to help at her estate's after-school club.

Nick believes that giving locally has two major advantages for philanthropists: “It is easier to have a major effect, and you can also see that effect for yourself. You know when you’re having an impact.”

"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."