An interview with Jerry Turner

Emma Gilbey interviewed Jerry Turner whilst Emma was an intern at CCF

How did you become involved in the Cambridgeshire Community Foundation?
In March 2006, I had a letter from Selwyn Image, who at the time was the Chair of the Board. He asked if I would meet with him and Jane Darlington. We arranged a meeting and Selwyn and Jane explained about the Community Foundation. It was the first time I had heard of the Community Foundation model and through the meeting I got a brief idea of the issues that some of Cambridgeshire’s people face – it was a real eye opener.

What type of issues in the local community are you particularly interested in?
It’s mainly around young people, but not solely, as I am concerned about other issues such as the help that some single parents may need, especially if they are young. It is true that I find the gradual decline of parenting skills concerning.

Are there any particular grants and projects which have stood out?
I remember one particular project that I heard about at a reception hosted by Cheffins. A number of grant recipients presented, I think three in total, and they explained what they did and how the CCF grants had helped them. One presentation included a young girl who I think was about 8 years old. The group was Centre 33 and they explained how they worked with young carers. The young girl stood up and gave a really impassioned and sometimes heart rending view of what it is like to be a young carer and how Centre 33 was helping her. The main things that struck me was how mature she was in giving that presentation, and, through the role she was playing supporting her mother, she was missing her childhood and perhaps even growing up too fast. One of the great things that Centre 33 do is to have regular group meetings where the young carers can get together, make friends and do fun things and actually be children.

I understand you and your wife have set up a Fund with the Foundation, The Bright Futures Fund. Why did you set it up?
To take this back to the first question, following the meeting that I had with Selwyn and Jane, one of the things which we talked about was that at that time there was the need for the Foundation to receive some early stage investment to help with core running costs. Following the meeting, my wife and I began to help on a monthly basis with the core running costs. When the Foundation had grown a little and had secured additional income, my wife and I decided we’d like to create an endowed fund. We are particularly concerned about young people ; we work with young people in the church and there is a lot of kids in Cambridgeshire that really need help. When all is said and done, children and young people are our future so we have called our fund Bright Futures and we will make grants from it to help groups working with disadvantaged children and young people.

I also understand you were able to grow your fund through the Grassroots Match Programme offered by the government. How did this work?
The Grassroots endowment challenge was intended to be and was successful in generating interest in creating new, or building existing, endowed funds held by CCF. For every £1 that we and other donors put into their endowed funds, the government matched the donations, on a one for one basis. The Grassroots endowment challenge ended in March 2011 but I understand there is to be another match challenge to encourage further endowment building.

Who in the community do you hope will benefit from the grants which are made from your fund?
I’m going to say young carers because that really touched me, but we have also expressed an interest in projects working with young offenders and those at risk of offending.

Finally, what do you hope CCF will be doing in 10 years time?
I hope CCF will have a really big endowment with many more donors and therefore able to have greater impact in the community. I also hope that there will be much more awareness amongst donors, both the public sector and private donors , that community foundations are a great route to enable money to reach local causes because the foundation knows about needs and is well placed to assess whether the groups are working effectively to tackle needs. So in summary I hope CCF is still offering the service it offers now, but is also well known for offering good advice to potential donors about their local community.

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