Our Funders
& Supporters
The organisations, and people, behind the CornerStone





The trust behind it
A Local Charity,
A Lasting Asset.

Rannoch Community Trust (RCT) is a community-led charity working to strengthen and support the Rannoch community through a range of projects, services and partnerships.
The Trust is committed to creating opportunities that benefit local people, helping to sustain and enhance community life through investment, collaboration and long-term development.
Delivering The Cornerstone was one of RCT’s most ambitious projects. Transforming a redundant school building into a vibrant pub, restaurant and community hub required significant investment, with the majority of the £1.7 million project funded through grants from public bodies, national programmes and charitable trusts.
The organisations below provided funding, advice, expertise and partnership support to help RCT bring The Cornerstone to life. Every one of them looked at a small rural community and believed in its potential. We are incredibly grateful for their invaluable contribution and continued support in helping create a lasting community asset for Rannoch.
OUR FUNDERS
Grants Given,
Doors Opened.
Turning a redundant school building into a working pub, restaurant and community space cost around £1.7 million. Almost all of it came from grants — public funds, national programmes and charitable trusts, some of which have been supporting Perthshire communities for the better part of a century. Every organisation below looked at a community of a few hundred people and decided the idea was worth backing.
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Scottish Land Fund
Visit website Opens in a new tabThe Scottish Land Fund helps communities across Scotland buy and manage land and buildings of local importance. It is funded by the Scottish Government and delivered on the Government's behalf by a partnership between The National Lottery Community Fund and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Grants range from £5,000 to £1,000,000 and can meet up to 95% of eligible costs, alongside development support from a dedicated adviser. The fund has operated since 2012 and remains open in 2026. It contains no National Lottery money; it is financed wholly from Scottish Government budgets.
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Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN)
Visit website Opens in a new tabScottish and Southern Electricity Networks owns and operates the electricity distribution network serving the north of Scotland, including Highland Perthshire. Through its Powering Communities to Net Zero fund, SSEN Distribution awards grants of up to £20,000 to community groups, charities and not-for-profit organisations within its licence areas. The fund supports physical and environmental resilience against severe weather, and the purchase of low-carbon technology such as heat pumps, solar panels, battery storage and electric vehicle charging. It totals £3 million and runs annually to spring 2028. It succeeded SSEN's earlier Resilient Communities Fund.
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Garfield Weston Foundation
Visit website Opens in a new tabThe Garfield Weston Foundation is a family-founded grant-making charity that funds registered charities across the whole of the United Kingdom. It makes grants towards capital projects, operating and core costs, and specific activities, in sectors including community, welfare, youth, arts, heritage, education, health, environment and faith. Grants range from about £1,000 to several million pounds and are scaled to the size of the applicant organisation.
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Community-Led Local Development (CLLD)
Visit website Opens in a new tabCommunity-Led Local Development is a Scottish Government fund that succeeded the EU LEADER programme, which ended in 2021. It supports rural and island communities to identify and deliver their own priorities. In Perth and Kinross, awards are decided by the Rural Perth & Kinross CLLD Local Action Group, a volunteer body drawn from the public, private and third sectors, with Perth and Kinross Council acting as accountable body. Grants cover both capital and revenue costs and support community facilities, enterprise, transport and employment projects across rural Perth and Kinross.
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Perth & Kinross Council
Visit website Opens in a new tabPerth and Kinross Council is the unitary local authority for Perth and Kinross, covering Highland Perthshire including Kinloch Rannoch. Formed in 1996, it delivers statutory services and supports economic and community development across the area. The Council administers a range of capital and revenue grant programmes on behalf of the Scottish and UK governments as well as its own funds, and acts as accountable body for locally-directed community funding. It also handles community asset transfers, through which community bodies take ownership of publicly-owned land and buildings.
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Foundation Scotland (the Coram Fund)
Visit website Opens in a new tabFoundation Scotland is Scotland's community foundation, established in 1996. It has distributed more than £220 million to charities and community groups, awarding £20.9 million through 3,195 grants across 285 separate funds in the past year alone. It manages named funds for individual donors and families, and administers community benefit funds arising from renewable energy developments. The Coram Fund, established with Foundation Scotland in 2017, supports affordable housing, rural and urban regeneration and projects involving community ownership, and has previously backed Scotland's first community-owned school at Strontian.
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The Gannochy Trust
Visit website Opens in a new tabThe Gannochy Trust is a Perth-based grant-making charity founded in 1937 by the distiller Arthur Kinmond Bell. Its primary purpose is serving the Perth and Kinross community, with a wider Scottish interest in the development of young people. It awards approximately £5 million a year under its 2022–2027 grant strategy, supporting registered charities across community, welfare, recreation, heritage and youth work. The Trust also provides housing and manages a wider estate of buildings and woodland. Kinloch Rannoch sits within its core area of operation.
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The James T Howat Charitable Trust
The James T Howat Charitable Trust is a Glasgow-based grant-making charity established in 1989. It distributes around £200,000 a year to charitable organisations across Scotland, supporting the relief of poverty, education, health and mental health, arts and culture, sport, social care, community development, environmental protection and animal welfare. Both capital and revenue costs are eligible, including capital grants towards community buildings. Its priority is Glasgow, extending to the central belt and Argyll and the Isles, with smaller grants considered for projects elsewhere in Scotland.
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The Hugh Fraser Foundation
Visit website Opens in a new tabThe Hugh Fraser Foundation is a Scottish grant-making charity established in 1960 by the Fraser family of the House of Fraser retail business. It makes grants to registered charities working in arts and culture, medical and health causes, the environment, education, and the care and support of young people, older people, disabled people and those facing disadvantage. Trustees give particular priority to activities in Scotland, especially in areas where the local economy or circumstances make fundraising for charitable purposes difficult. It distributed approximately £3.6 million in the year to 31 March 2025.
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Thomson Charitable Trust
Visit website Opens in a new tabThe Thomson Charitable Trust is a Perth-based grant-making charity established in 1975. It makes grants for purposes connected with sport, music, the arts and education, and also supports the relief of poverty, the advancement of health and the protection of the environment. Grants of up to around £5,000 are awarded. Its focus is Perth and the wider Perth and Kinross area.
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UK Government (Community Ownership Fund)
Visit website Opens in a new tabThe Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is the UK Government department responsible for housing, local government, communities and local growth funding. Between September 2021 and July 2024 it was named the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Its Community Ownership Fund helped community groups across the United Kingdom take ownership of assets at risk of closure — pubs, shops, sporting venues and community buildings — supporting hundreds of projects before it closed to applications in 2024.
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The National Lottery Community Fund
Visit website Opens in a new tabThe National Lottery Community Fund distributes money raised by National Lottery players to community projects across the United Kingdom, and is the largest community funder in the country. It is a non-departmental public body; its legal name remains Big Lottery Fund, and it operated under that name until 2019. In Scotland it also administers programmes on behalf of the Scottish Government, including the Scottish Land Fund, for which it handles enquiries, assessment, award and grant management on the Scottish Government's behalf.
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Major Local Donors
Alongside the grants and the public funding, The CornerStone was built on the generosity of the people who live here. Individuals, families and local businesses gave what they could — donations large and small, and countless hours of time, skill and labour — because they believed Rannoch deserved a place to gather. Some gave once. Many gave again and again. We are grateful to every one of them. The CornerStone belongs to this community for the simplest of reasons: this community is what made it possible.
OUR SUPPORTERS
Advice Given Freely,
Experience Shared.
Not every kind of help arrives as a cheque. Taking a public building into community ownership involves asset transfer law, governance, business planning and a hundred decisions nobody in the village had made before. These organisations gave their time and expertise so that a group of volunteers didn't have to work it out alone.
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Development Trusts Association Scotland (DTAS)
Visit website Opens in a new tabDevelopment Trusts Association Scotland is the national membership body for Scotland's development trusts and community anchor organisations, representing around 350 community-led groups. It provides members with advice, training, peer networking and policy representation. Through the Community Ownership Support Service, which it delivers on behalf of the Scottish Government, DTAS gives free specialist help to community groups taking public buildings and land into community ownership, covering asset transfer, governance, legal structures and business planning. It also partners in the Scottish Community Pubs Partnership supporting community pub buy-outs.
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Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust
Visit website Opens in a new tabPerth and Kinross Countryside Trust is a charity working across Perthshire and Kinross-shire to improve public access to the countryside and to conserve the local natural environment. It negotiates access with landowners, builds and maintains paths and active travel routes, manages woodlands and biodiversity work, and runs outdoor learning programmes connecting communities with nature. Projects include the River Tay Way, the Cateran Trail, the Ben Vrackie path restoration and the Aberfeldy to Kenmore active travel route.
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Local Energy Scotland
Visit website Opens in a new tabLocal Energy Scotland administers and manages the Scottish Government's Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES). It is a consortium of Energy Saving Trust, Changeworks, the Energy Agency and Scarf, established in 2013, with a network of local development officers across Scotland. It provides free advice, technical and legal support, and administers CARES grants and loans. CARES supports communities to engage with, participate in and benefit from the transition to net zero emissions, including renewable heat and energy installations in community buildings.
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Plunkett UK
Visit website Opens in a new tabPlunkett UK, formerly the Plunkett Foundation and founded in 1919, is the national charity supporting rural community-owned businesses across the United Kingdom. It has helped almost 600 community businesses reach trading and supports over 500 operating enterprises, including community-owned pubs, shops, cafés and woodlands. Plunkett provides specialist advice at every stage, from first idea and feasibility through share offers, legal structures and trading. In Scotland it leads the Scottish Community Pubs Partnership with Development Trusts Association Scotland, Community Shares Scotland and Co-operative Development Scotland.
