Each year, we support thousands of Freemasons, members of their families and people in local communities to live better lives by encouraging opportunity, promoting independence and improving wellbeing. From fundraising to grant-making, and everything in between, we want to be the best charity we can be.
We will ensure all areas of our work are guided by our three core values which are responsive to need, making a difference and striving for excellence. These values have been developed to empower our staff and volunteers to make decisions and deliver a service to a standard that our donors, beneficiaries and peers in the charity sector expect. Freemasons are at the heart of the MCF and we hope that our new core values will be evident to everyone with whom we work.
Our newly-established Charity Stewards Focus Group brings together expertise and knowledge from Freemason fundraisers across the country, and will help ensure that as well as being compliant, we’re also innovative.
We have commissioned extensive studies and surveys, and will use these to better understand the changing needs of the Freemasons and families we support. We will also form a working group to consider options for new support for people living with mental health problems.
We want to embrace smarter technology to make the most efficient use of staff and volunteer time and resources. This will include testing video conferencing to reduce travel and expense for staff and volunteers, and rolling out tablets to our trustees for committee and board meetings. This will help to reduce time and money, and lessen our impact on the environment when producing and distributing committee papers.
Having created outcome frameworks to measure the impact of our grant-making to charities, we hope to see tangible evidence that the support we offer is helping us achieve our goals. We now plan to develop a Theory of Change and outcome frameworks to help us monitor the effectiveness of our support for Freemasons and their families.
We will continue working to raise our profile within the third sector and in the wider community, supporting the United Grand Lodge of England’s communications objective of raising the profile of Freemasonry.
Our membership with the Fundraising Regulator will see us continue to work to become better fundraisers. We’re serious about positive fundraising and want to ensure we adhere to best practice and comply with the law at all times. Within our grant-making programmes, we will continue to improve the experience and response times of those coming to us for help.
Our board and committee membership will evolve as three-year terms come to an end. As we enter our fourth year, we will continue to recruit people with the specialist skills to strengthen our governance and help provide scrutiny, challenge and support to our activities.
TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DISADVANTAGED
AND VULNERABLE PEOPLE HAVE SEEN THEIR
LIVES CHANGE FOR THE BETTER
A priority for the year was to review and refocus our grant-making programmes for charities
We want to make the greatest possible impact at a local level
Discover the grants we have awarded to individuals, families and charities in your local area
All our income comes from the generosity and efforts of Freemasons, their families and friends
