About Us

From championing local community causes to managing multi-million pound projects, we are proud to support vibrant communities and brighter futures for the people who live and work in Wiltshire and Swindon. Find out more about our charity and its work.

About Us

From championing local community causes to managing multi-million pound projects, we are proud to support vibrant communities and brighter futures for the people who live and work in Wiltshire and Swindon.

Vibrant Communities & Brighter Futures

Community First is a registered charity (288117) based in Devizes. As a member of ACRE, we support rural communities across Wiltshire and Swindon through advisory services for Village Halls and Local Councils. We envisage, create and manage projects to support people and places including community transport schemes, community led housing, community organising and volunteering services.

Vibrant Communities

We are passionate about helping people work together to identify and find solutions to things that matter to them. From championing local grassroots causes to managing multi-million pound projects, we are proud to support people and places in the vibrant communities we have served for over 50 years.

Brighter Futures

Community First works tirelessly to help people overcome challenges in their lives and we are passionate about brighter futures for young and old alike. We support young people through our national award-winning ‘youth arm’ Youth Action Wiltshire, including Wiltshire Young Carers, Splash, Project Inspire and youth club support.

As the managing partner for the Building Bridges programme, jointly funded by the Big Lottery Fund and the European Social Fund, Community First is leading an ambitious partnership of 40 organisations in Swindon and Wiltshire, who are working together to help overcome barriers to employment and education.

Inspiring Ideas

As a champion for local enterprise, we love fresh ideas that make local communities better places to live and work. We think outside the box to develop bold and exciting ideas through consultancy and creative services.

Community First helps people in off mains gas areas save money each year through our community oil buying scheme and distributes hundreds of thousands of pounds of funding for new initiatives and community projects, through grants and funding programmes.

Approx volunteers supported directly or through our services

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Community first annual review and business plan cover 2020-2023

Find out more about our work in the Community First Annual Review and Business Plan (20-23)

Our Vision

Vibrant communities, brighter futures

Our Aims

Connecting Communities

We strengthen local communities by offering award winning services for people and places across Wiltshire and Swindon. Including community transport schemes, support for village halls and local councils and other community development initiatives.

Tackling Disadvantage

We tackle disadvantage by supporting young people through Youth Action Wiltshire. We also manage the Building Bridges programme, a partnership of organisations helping people overcome their barriers to employment and education.

Encouraging Enterprise

We aim to encourage rural enterprise by supporting local community initiatives. We offer grants to organisations under various grant schemes, support to village halls and parish councils looking for insurance and an affordable bulk oil-buying scheme.

Inspiring Ideas

We aim to innovate and inspire ideas through our consultancy services, engaging with local people and our creative agency service which offers affordable, professional creative design and website development services for the sector.
Our values are to be:
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Effective

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Encouraging

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Pioneering

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Trustworthy

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Supportive

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Enthusiastic

Membership

Support Community First by becoming a member

Annual Review

Summary of achievements including updates on our programmes.

Contact Us

Get in touch with the team at Community First