Milton Keynes Community Foundation is proud to celebrate the significant milestone of its five-year anniversary of its strategic partnership with the Milton Keynes Pride Festival.
Since 2019, MK Community Foundation has provided strategic funding to the Milton Keynes Pride Festival, helping to ensure the festival's accessibility and sustainability. Over the past five years, this support has enabled initiatives aimed at creating a welcoming and safe environment for all members of the community.
This year, the partnership has received an incredible boost thanks to a generous contribution from chartered accountancy body, ICAEW, which has offices in central Milton Keynes. Their donation of £6,000 through MK Community Foundation, has raised the total funding for this year to £24,000.
"We are thrilled to mark five years of our partnership with the Milton Keynes Pride Festival," said Samantha Snelus, Philanthropy Manager at Milton Keynes Community Foundation. "Our ongoing strategic partnership has enabled the festival to thrive, promoting diversity and creating a sense of belonging in Milton Keynes. We are especially grateful for the generous support from our local business partner, ICAEW, which has significantly increased our funding and impact this year. We look forward to continuing this vital work and celebrating many more milestones together."
The Milton Keynes Pride Festival has become a cornerstone event, attracting thousands of attendees each year and providing a platform for LGBTQ+ voices and communities. The funding and support from Milton Keynes Community Foundation, now boosted by ICAEW’s contribution, will make a significant difference in expanding the festival's reach and the impact on attendees.
Keith Emmett III, Director at Milton Keynes Pride Festival said:
Milton Keynes Pride Festival extends heartfelt gratitude to Milton Keynes Community Foundation and ICAEW for their remarkable support. This generous contribution has helped us elevate our event by enabling us to provide accessibility services such as BSL interpreters across our stages, this magnifies our impact as a staple event for the area, by helping us to provide an inclusive event for all to enjoy. Together, we are forging a path toward greater inclusivity for the city, ensuring that we provide as an inclusive event as possible. With steadfast partners like Milton Keynes Community Foundation and ICAEW, we look forward to many more years of unity, diversity, and shared success.
Kim Nyawira, ICAEW Head of Committees and Tribunals said: “One of our values at ICAEW is to build local economies and communities that are sustainable, accountable and fair. We are committed to supporting the diversity agenda and making both the chartered accountancy profession, and in our role as a local employer, the local community, truly inclusive. Therefore, we are delighted that our partnership with the Milton Keynes Community Foundation has enabled us to support the city’s Pride festival this year and we look forward to a fantastic celebration of the LGBTQ+ community.”
As we celebrate this important anniversary, Milton Keynes Community Foundation reaffirms its dedication to supporting charities and voluntary groups that drive positive change and create a fairer, more inclusive community for all.
For more information about the Milton Keynes Community Foundation: www.mkcommunityfoundation.co.uk