The UK's charity to promote innovation and to support people and projects in orienteering through fund-raising activities.
The Orienteering Foundation is a registered charity, independent of British Orienteering. It was set up with money from a bequest from Bertie & Elsie Ward, and is now raising further funds, and awarding grants. The objectives are to promote the sport of orienteering in the UK through enhancement, innovation, and alleviation of hardship.
The Orienteering Foundation is built on your generosity. We welcome all donations, no matter how large or small, and there are many ways you can contribute. See the Donate page.
Many grants have been made, for example supporting national teams at the World Schools Championships, regional squads training at home and abroad, and enhancing the Junior Home Internationals. There has been a historical focus on juniors, but we welcome grant applications for any UK projects that meet our objectives. See the Apply for Funding page.
Earlier this year the Orienteering Foundation provided a grant to MAROC towards their talent squad training weekend. See below for a report produced by the juniors.
SEOA has kindly donated some of the profits from JK 2017 to the Orienteering Foundation.
We are pleased to report that OpenOrienteeringMap version 3 - which was partly funded by an Orienteering Foundation grant - is now available.
The Orienteering Foundation was happy to supporting a coaching day open to individuals and groups back in February 2018. We were particularly keen to promote coaching of adult orienteers, who are often under-served, but also welcomed groups including juniors. Details of the day are below.
Sadly the day saw very cold and snowy weather, but those who made it were either coached as individuals by Derek Allison who was assisted by Jo Cleary, or in club groups using the same controls but with their own training exercises. Participants paid a small fee, and the cost to the Foundation was minimal, with Trustee effort restricted to supervising the excellent plans prepared by Derek. We did a short survey of participants afterwards, and will be reviewing the results to decide whether to the day should be repeated in future. Any further feedback is welcome.
The 2017 World Schools Orienteering Championships took place in in Palermo, Sicily, from the 22nd to 28th April. England took a full delegation consisting of 40 athletes and 10 coaches, generously supported by the Orienteering Foundation.