Cumbria Community Foundation - Furness: Opportunities and Challenges 2021

F U R N E S S – O P P O R T U N I T I E S & C H A L L E N G E S 4 It uses key factual information to provide a summary of social needs, barriers to success and community issues. It brings together comprehensive statistics that describe all aspects of Furness. It also contains ‘Furness Voices’ - extracts from interviews with local people and also the results of exercises held with children across Furness. Together they describe what they believe is special about life in Furness, what needs to be done to improve the area and what makes them most proud. The report also contains a range of case studies of community projects and organisations that address some of the area’s most pressing issues. The creation of this independent report has been led by Cumbria Community Foundation. Its primary objective is to address disadvantage across Cumbria and it does this by promoting philanthropy and managing a growing portfolio of grant-making funds. It has raised and distributed in excess of £50m across the county since 1999 and is home to more than 100 individual and corporate philanthropic funds. This report is the third in a series created by the Community Foundation and follows the successful Cumbria Revealed (2017) and West Cumbria Opportunities and Challenges (2019) reports. In February 2021 the Foundation brought together more than 70 representatives of organisations drawn from across the area to actively engage in contributing to what they wanted the report to highlight and say about Furness. The report has several roles. It is a resource for local charities to plan their work and help write successful bids for funding. It is a reference document for professionals in the public sector planning services and developing regeneration plans. It provides a focus for charitable funders both local and national that wish to prioritise how they invest in the community and it is a call to action for existing and future philanthropists to give generously and strategically in support of the people of the area. There is a proud history of giving in Furness, from the thousands who raise money every year through the Keswick to Barrow Walk to the family philanthropy that underlies the Sir John Fisher Foundation. We hope that Furness Opportunities and Challenges will be the catalyst for a new generation of giving in support of this special community. Special thanks to members of the Steering Group that supported the creation of the report. Membership involved representation from senior figures from the public, private and charitable sectors including Barrow Borough Council, Cumbria County Council, the University of Cumbria, South Lakeland District Council, BAE Systems, Cavendish Estates, Forge Europa, Oxley Developments and SN Engineering.” Andrew Beeforth OBE Chief Executive Cumbria Community Foundation Introduction This report describes the circumstances in which the people of Furness live, their challenges and their opportunities.