‘Changes we set in motion by 2030 will determine the future of society – you are the most powerful philanthropists that have ever existed.’ This captivating statement by Adam Cooper, Director, Threads in the Ground, encapsulated the sanguine tone of UKCF conference, Foundations for the Future, with its focus on the role of philanthropy in building resilient, inclusive and sustainable communities.

Here at the European Community Foundation Initiative (ECFI), we know that the UKCF conference is a key moment for exploration, questioning, and exchange for the UK community foundation field and the wider European movement. We built on this bi-annual event by connecting two study visits, bringing a delegation of practitioners from 21 European countries. For this edition, we had 28 enthusiastic people joining us, getting into conversations and exchanges with community foundation staff, board members and volunteers from the UK, learning from them, and bringing their practices and processes into the conversation, shaping one another. Throughout our days in York, Leeds and Harrogate, the potential of community foundations emerged clearly across different sessions and conversations.

First, as Indy Johar, Dark Matter Labs, put it, ‘community foundations are fundamental to building civic resilience’. They provide community-shaped responses to current systemic global challenges. The key ability they need to develop in doing so is to hold together different time horizons in developing and implementing their strategy. While there are urgent needs to address in the present, they must not be absorbed by the ever-emerging crises. They must be able to operate with a long-term vision, considering the effects of our decisions today on the future and striving to solve the root causes of today’s systemic challenges.

Secondly, community foundations in the UK and beyond have built institutional and community credibility to operate over time. They keep on creating and affirming their legitimacy on how they catalyse, move, and deploy capital in an effective and grassroots way. Furthermore, they are gaining legitimacy as organisers of non-financial resources – such as social and knowledge-based capital. This is a crucial feature that community foundations need to put at the centre of their discourse, as well as the unique added value they can bring to the table with stakeholders in their community and beyond. UKCF is doing extraordinary work convening this message and raising the community foundations’ movement profile at government level in a draft national philanthropy strategy, as we heard from Ben Robinson, Interim Co-CEO at UKCF and Tom Flude from the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).

Finally, there was a strong consensus that there is no community foundation without the community. It is the greatest asset they bring to the table. But how do they nurture and create a lively, active, engaged community? According to Jon Alexander, co-founder New Citizen Project, the key to meaningful community participation is not to treat individuals as ‘consumers’; people with needs we must serve and offer prefabricated responses to, but rather as citizens. The shift is in our capacity to empower them and give them agency on their present and future, as individuals and communities. We must change our mindset: from finding solutions to needs towards fulfilling community ambitions and desires, by quoting Cormac Russell, Managing Director of Nurture Development, taking what’s strong in the community and correcting what’s wrong.

Francesca Mereta is the Peer learning and communications expert at ECFI (European Community Foundation Initiative).