A music therapy service for care home residents with dementia, the addition of blood stocks to air ambulances to enable roadside transfusions, and a volunteer-run music festival that boosted the economy of the entire community, are among the projects to have made the shortlist in The Charity Awards 2014.

Now in its 15th year and again sponsored by Charities Aid Foundation, The Charity Awards seeks to recognise and reward excellence in charity leadership and management by identifying the best examples of charitable endeavour across the UK.

Thirty charities made the shortlist across the ten categories this year.  Also among them were a basketball club that educates its young players about the dangers of carrying knives, a global online resource driving up standards in palliative care, and a twist on the conventional foodbank service that provides hot three-course meals to clients in a welcoming environment instead of food parcels to take home.

The distinguished panel of judges, drawn from charities and leading advisory organisations in the voluntary sector, spent several days poring over the applications to arrive at the shortlist.  Chair of judges Andrew Hind said:  “The quality of entries was as high as ever and whittling them down to 30 was quite a challenge.

“However, we are delighted to see that the Charity Awards continues to attract inspiring examples of genuinely outstanding work going on within civil society.”

Summaries of all the shortlisted entries can be found on charityawards.co.uk and in the June edition of Charity Finance magazine.

The winners will be announced at a gala presentation dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London’s Park Lane on Thursday 12 June, hosted by actor and comedian Stephen Frost.  Some 800 dignitaries from civil society, politics and showbusiness will be present to see the winning charities crowned.

As well as their trophies, the winning projects will benefit from a host of prizes, including intensive leadership training delivered by the Leadership Trust Foundation, a variety of consultancy support offered by RBS, and subscriptions to various Civil Society Media publications and products.