50 Years

2011 was the year of the 50th anniversary of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.  In the five decades since we were established we have channelled over £400 million into the arts, education and learning, the environment and social change.

To mark our 50th birthday we commissioned a short film with some stories about what we do.  Click below to see our birthday film.

Subtitled version of the film

 

50th Anniversary Grants

The anniversary provided us with a moment for celebration, to take pride in the organisations that we have supported and the lives across the UK that we have been able to change for the better.  It was also an opportunity to look back and reflect on the journey that we had been on, with friends past and present.  

As part of our celebrations, we chose 15 organisations to whom we have given birthday grants.  These total £5 million (this is in addition to our usual grant-making).

Art Fund
£600,000 towards RENEW, an initiative to help build collections in up to six UK museums.

Barton Hill Settlement
£200,000 towards reserves.

British Film Institute
£200,000 towards cataloguing, preserving and digitising the private collection by film Director Ken Loach.

Community Foundation Network
£750,000 towards developing a fellowship of philanthropists.

Dulwich Picture Gallery
£200,000 towards the Gallery's endowment fund
£200,000 towards support for new and existing communities enabling people to move on from Homelessness.

MyBnk
£200,000 towards reserves and working capital.

National Museum Wales
£600,000 towards digitising and displaying historic photography collections.

National Trust
£300,000 towards land acquisition at Wicken Fen.

Profound and Multiple Impairment Service (PAMIS) 
£200,000 towards reserves.

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
£750,000 towards the seed vault and related work on lowland meadow seed at the Millennium Seed bank, Wakehurst.

Sutton Borough Citizens Advice Bureaux
£20,340 towards core costs.

The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Peterborough
£300,000 towards land acquisition at Great Fen.

The Who Cares? Trust
£200,000 towards reserves.

Wordsworth Trust
£200,000 towards long-term strategic plans for the Wordsworth Trust site.

 

The document below contains a very brief history of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation in form of a picture gallery. You can read more about our history in the 2010 Annual Report: