The Cabinet Office will put up £500,000 in match funding for giving to local charities later this year, ahead of the Giving Summit.

The minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, outlined plans to offer the half million on the localgiving.com website this September in an effort to stimulate giving to local causes in the UK.

Speaking to journalists in Whitehall this morning ahead of the hotly-anticipated Giving Summit,  Hurd reviewed the record of the Coalition government with relation to the charity sector so far and said that  one of the things the government felt “worked very well” in its first two years was match funding. A previous government match fund on localgiving.com, worth £400,000 was gobbled up in 48 hours on localgiving.com.

Hurd also announced the launch an initiative to find new ideas to address two societal issues: supporting older people and reducing waste in communities. The initiative, called ‘Challenge Prizes’, was first mooted in the Giving White Paper released last year.

 “We’ll sift out the best possible ideas,” said Hurd, “And then we’ll back them.”

source civil society