The 174 Trust is a community charity that was originally established in the North of Belfast and which now works across the city.
174 Trust works with local people to identify and meet local needs. One such need was the lack of an inclusive, safe environment for the local community to use and to access leisure and learning programmes. To address this, the Trust has refurbished a derelict 19th century church building with a £3.5m Capital project to create the ‘Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts’. The Foundation made a grant towards the Capital costs of this project in recognition of the opportunities the new centre would offer. Whilst all Capital projects that the Foundation support need to demonstrate realistic revenue and expenditure projections upon completion, the Trustees are sympathetic when those plans take a little longer than planned due to external factors.
They were happy therefore to make a subsequent grant a year later to help support the organisation’s running costs whilst 174 Trust’s plans to generate income had time to bear fruit. Since opening, the Trust has attracted support from other private and public grant-makers, enabling the organisation to deliver arts and culture based programmes for thousands of people in a part of Belfast which has high multiple deprivation.
“We are truly indebted to Garfield Weston for their support in the development of the 174 Trust’s new project, Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts. We couldn’t find any funder who was willing to provide financial assistance towards the specific management support costs, and were thankful that the grant allowed us to control the Capital programme to deliver a centre that is now becoming a cultural hub for the city, and especially the people from North Belfast that we serve.” Rev. Dr. Bill Shaw OBE, Director.