There is much to be proud of when looking back over the five years of our first strategy. We have awarded over £100M with more than 30,000 grants in that time and have achieved almost all that we set out to do
We started with a bang when creating the MCF Community Awards where we awarded £3M to 300 charities to mark the 300th anniversary of the first Grand Lodge. The programme involved Freemasons across England and Wales choosing 300 local charities to receive an award, with the wider public voting on the size of grants awarded to each charity, ranging from £4,000 to £25,000. We received almost 200,000 votes from the public, helping to raise awareness of the MCF and the charitable principles of Freemasonry.
We increased the number and value of multi-year core grant funding to small charities. We recognised that not all our grants should be project-focussed and that the essential daily costs of running a charity are vital too and charities often struggle to get funding for them. In this year we also began our £1M three-year partnership with Age UK. The ‘Later Life Goals’ project, supported older people who were experiencing a significant event in later life to feel less lonely and get the most out of life.
We undertook the first ever research study into the needs of masonic community. Over 3,500 Freemasons responded to our survey and over 50 in-depth interviews took place providing us with a wide range of insights into the financial, health and wellbeing needs of Freemasons and their loved ones.
This was a year like no other as we responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact that had on the communities we supported. The pandemic was a perfect storm which resulted in a significant reduction in the amount of donations we received as Freemasonry shut down along with the rest of the country, while at the same time demand for support from the individuals and charities rose dramatically. Working in partnership with the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) and Metropolitan and Provincial Grand Lodges across England, Wales, the Channel Islands and overseas Districts, we awarded £4.7 million in grants to support local communities through COVID-19. During this time the charity needed to be agile and flexible with almost all staff working remotely.
This was the final year of our five-year strategy. As in the previous year, we wanted to respond to the impact that COVID-19 had on communities and charities supporting those affected. We are proud to have supported 3,281 families and individuals and given 798 grants to charities to fund projects that are tackling some of society’s most challenging issues. We partnered with Age UK, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Refuge with grants totalling £790k. Freemasons across England and Wales also stepped up to support their local communities and together with MCF gave 392 matched-funded grants to help local charities, totalling £464,601. We also launched a dedicated appeal in response to the war in Ukraine and gave £50,000 immediately to support the humanitarian crisis.
Our work doesn’t stop here however and we know that there is much more we can do on behalf of Freemasonry to help disadvantaged families and communities in the years ahead.
The MCF believes that being an impact-led grantmaker can help us to build better lives for those we help directly as well as those receiving help from the charities we have supported.
To do this effectively we need to understand who our beneficiaries are and how their circumstances compare to that of their peers. In 2022 we undertook an analysis of the past five years of support to families and individuals.
