Our Strategy
Help us create a real future for rural Britain
When our countryside thrives, we all do.
Across the United Kingdom, rural communities and farming families are living with immense uncertainty amid the relentless pace and scale of economic, climate and societal change.
An agricultural revolution is under way and the most significant reforms to farm support in living memory are accelerating, even as farmers’ fields are under water, their feed and fertiliser costs are sky-rocketing, a cost of living crisis is intensifying the demand for low food prices, and new animal and plant diseases hover on our shores. The rural voice remains faint against the clamour of bigger, more visible needs; the needs of rural communities frequently overlooked and just as frequently misunderstood, threatening their social and community fabric.
2024–2028
marks an ambitious new phase of strategic growth for The Royal Countryside Fund.
The only one
The Royal Countryside Fund is the only nationwide charity focused specifically on supporting family farms and rural communities.
We are picking up the pace
This 2024-2028 strategy is about picking up the pace. We want to paint this picture of what works on a broader canvas, to reach more of the countryside in all four nations, to keep a step ahead of the relentless pressures on agriculture with innovative new business support themes, and to accelerate and differentiate our community programmes. We are incredibly honoured to have been renamed The Royal Countryside Fund and we feel deeply the trust this signals from His Majesty. We are determined to use this landmark moment to its greatest advantage and have set our sights high. Our strategy describes an ambitious growth plan, expanding and replicating our model for supporting family farms and rural communities county by county, while tailoring our advice to local circumstances. In tandem, we’ll develop our rural community programmes on that same convening model, aiming to help build confident self-help networks which will survive and thrive beyond our specific intervention, and with a particular focus on the next generation and innovative, repeatable solutions.
Many of our fellow citizens wouldn’t choose to live in ‘the middle of nowhere’, but we know that millions of them feel a great connection to and responsibility for our countryside, for those places which to some of us really are ‘the centre of everything’. The Royal Countryside Fund wants to become the charity of choice for people in the countryside and for everyone who cares about those people and the difference they make, who understands that they are essential to our future countryside on which so much depends. Our strategic ambition requires us to build our profile and build our income. We are so grateful to the many, many supporters, advisers and participants who have brought The Royal Countryside Fund to this stage. I hope you’ll be as excited as we are by the direction we are setting. There’s no shortage of opportunity to be involved, and we at The Royal Countryside Fund look forward to welcoming your support, guidance and skills over the next four years.
Heather Hancock LVO DL
Chair The Royal Countryside Fund
Become a friend of the countryside
By donating or even just spreading the word, you can help hardworking farmers build more resilient family farms, support brilliant community-led projects, and make sure the next generation has the opportunity to live and work on the land they love.
