Durham Christian Partnership

Charity Details

History and Activities

Durham Christian Partnership was established in 1999, initially acting as a listening service based in Durham Cathedral. The listening service continues to operate to this day and is entirely run by volunteers who ensure someone is always available to listen all day between Monday and Saturday. 

One of the major initiatives they are involved in is organising County Durham Foodbank which uses the Trussell Trust model and part of the national Foodbank Network. The foodbank distributed 138 tonnes of food in 2017 which was enough to provide 17,527 people with 3 days of food. The charity estimated the value of this food to be in excess of a quarter of a million pounds which was distributed via 28 different collection points. This year, in addition to covering County Durham, they extended their footprint to cover Sunderland. The charity’s involvement in the foodbank has spawned a series of other initiatives all designed to provide assistance to poorest people in the community. For example, a Fuel Bank project was established in 2015 in order to alleviate fuel poverty. The scheme, the first of its kind in the country, is operated in partnership with nPower and National Energy Action and provides energy vouchers to pre-payment meter users. During 2017 over 3947 vouchers were provided to users of prepayment meters.

Another increasingly important service is the running of two Money Advice Centres in Durham and Stanley. The centres supported 426 clients in 2017, who had a cumulative debt of over £4 million. The charity also operates a used goods shop which provides a small income. The shop, based in Framwellgate Moor is run predominately by volunteers between Monday and Saturday and raised £56,425 for the charity in the last financial year.

Volunteers are the lifeblood of Durham Cristian partnership, they estimate that the impact of their charitable expenditure is multiplied many times over because of it. The charity estimate that they have benefited from 40,000 hours of volunteering in 2017 from 550 volunteers, which they value at £338,000, a total which exceeds their £343,357 of charitable spending. The main proportion of their income is derived from gifts made to the foodbank but they also received grants from the public sector worth £67,293.

Vital Statistics (year to 31/12/2017)

Website

http://www.durhamcp.org.uk/

References