Flipping the Coin: The two sides of Community Wealth in England

The Young Foundation’s 2018 Patchwork Philanthropy report showed for the first time that not only is public sector spending unequally distributed geographically, but so too is philanthropic spend by charities, trusts and foundations. Some of the regions with the highest levels of deprivation receive some of the lowest levels of investment, representing ‘cold spots’ of funding; raising questions about funding strategies, how recipients of funding are identified and the capacity of some communities to take advantage of funding opportunities.

This 2019 report updates the distribution of public, charitable and philanthropic funding across England. It also aims to ‘flip the coin’ and look at this funding in relation to the strength of a community. It represents a first attempt to create an Index of Community Strength and draws on a wide range of indicators and data sets, most of which have not been used in this type of analysis before.