How the £400,000 fund in Oxfordshire shows the future of community investment
Given its background, Dicott’s success is even more significant. The town is surrounded by world-class science campuses and the prosperity it brings, and is also a pocket of serious social and economic deprivation. This stark inequality demand provides a new model for corporate donations – a model that bridges the gap between the wealth generated by cutting-edge research facilities and struggling families living in the shadows.
The fund’s approach provides a blueprint for solving one of the most enduring challenges in the UK: how to leverage private sector resources for the real community’s interests. Within five months of release, it generated a grant of £100,000. By year three, it had allocated 70 grants among the 46,000 residents of the larger Didcot, from domestic abuse support to youth skills training.
Didcot is not just money, but method. The fund, chaired by Elizabeth Paris, deputy vice-president of Oxfordshire, does not simply write a check. It brings together businesses, charities, local governments and faith leaders in the same room to map community needs and systematically fill gaps. This year’s annual impact event, hosted by the European Space Agency, attracted 160 guests, otherwise rarely seen.
This model represents a fundamental shift from traditional corporate social responsibility. Rather than making isolated charitable contributions, the DIDCOT approach creates ongoing partnerships to leverage professional networks, legal expertise and grant tips, and financial resources.
Success reflects the wider citizen renewal that has taken place throughout the UK, most of which are led by 5.5 million SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) in the country. Throughout the UK, these businesses demonstrate not only what it means to contribute to the local community not only economically but also socially. They do so quietly through skills, relationships and belief in management.
Last winter, allowing for reduced fuel has made many families wonder how to heat their homes. In East Yorkshire, a coalition of community groups and local companies mobilized at a speed, allocating tens of thousands of pounds of emergency credentials. Similar efforts by Bottisham, Great Wilbraham and Ruddington have attracted nearly 300 residents with targeted help. These behaviors make everything similar to home.
SMEs employ 60% of the UK’s workforce, but their real strength lies in their embedding in their local communities. They are in distant companies or central governments who cannot understand local needs.
Through my role as a lieutenant in Oxfordshire, along with our team of 40 lieutenants, I have witnessed this transformation firsthand. We interact with thousands of people every year to report that this quiet citizen renewal is both important and accelerated.
From Isle of Wight, former vehicle technician Jan Retror worked as an energy transformation assessor to help neighbors cut bills and carbon emissions, reaching East Yorkshire, where community groups and local companies mobilize to distribute emergency fuel vouchers, SMES proves itself a key citizen actor.
Perhaps the most striking example is Inveraray on Scotland’s west coast, where the historic local marina has been closed for a decade. A local charity backed by SMEs has raised over £275,000 in seven funding bids. The terminal reopened in April 2024 and now hosts the monthly farmers market. As Inveraray Community Committee Chairman Linda Divers said on the ribbon cutting: “The vote of trust turns dreams into reality.”
This is important because trust (the basis of effective community action) is built through relationships. A 2023 study by King’s College London found that 98% of UK residents trust people they personally know. The unique position of small and medium-sized businesses rooted in their communities can cultivate and capitalize on this trust.
The Parliament is paying attention. The Commerce and Trade Commission has investigated the thriving small companies, and Chairman Liam Byrne calls them “the motor room for growth and our largest employer.”
The potential is huge. Imagine that businesses help food banks become comprehensive community hubs. Image Digital Skills Clinic Helps charities Navigate the AI-Ready Rest Grant App. Imagine hundreds of professionals like Jan, working in green jobs that serve local communities and environmental goals.
The DidCot model shows that this is not utopian thinking – it is happening now. What is needed is to recognize that this story is changing: from the business of independent economic actors to the business, as community builders, to keep pace with local purposes.
The work is quiet, relationship and transformational. In an era of decline in social capital and institutional trust, it offers hope that British communities can rebuild themselves from scratch. We should celebrate it – and help it grow.
