Covid19: Emergency Support & Funding
23rd March 2020
Details of Emergency Funding & Support for Local Charities, Community Groups, Voluntary Organisations & Social Enterprises
On this page we’ll list new emergency funding pots as they become available. You can also get in touch with us if you need help.
Grants Online is also compiling a UK-wide emergency funding list. We’ll make sure that we list details here of all the main funds, however, if you don’t find what you’re looking for, it might be worth having a look at their fuller list.
Over 200 funders have signed a pledge to support the organisations that they already fund. They have recognised that activities may changee and that targets and deadlines may be missed, or that you may have to use funds differently and they have agreed to be reasonable and flexible in their approach to that. It’s important though, that you speak to your funders about your plans or issues as soon as you can.
Health Inequalities Funding
The NHS West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health Inequalities Fund will launch on Tuesday 28 April is to help reduce the gap in health equality across the area.
Up to £450,000 of funds will be available to voluntary and community organisations across Bradford and Craven; Calderdale, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield. It aims to help tackle the impact of COVID-19 on people’s health and wellbeing.
Voluntary and community organisations are invited to apply for grant funding for up to £50,000. Six funds will be available for up to £25,000, with another six grants between £25,000 and £50,000.
The fund welcomes innovative ideas, which deliver a partnership approach to reducing health inequalities by working across health and voluntary and community sector (VCS) partners.
We are looking for sustainable interventions that go beyond the immediate impacts of the pandemic, seek to address the medium to longer term impacts on inequalities and increase resilience of individuals and communities.
The funding will focus on priority population groups that we believe may be disproportionately affected through the COVID-19 pandemic. These groups are:
• Low income families and those families, who now find themselves in financial hardship as a result of COVID-19.
• People aged over 55 years living in areas ranked as being in the 10% most deprived nationally.
• People living with mental health conditions, learning disabilities and Autism.
Applicants must be able to show that they are addressing a specific need in their community.
Contact sarah.smith23@nhs.net for more information, or visit www.wyhpartnership.co.uk
Closing date: Monday 8th June at 5pm
Barclays Covid-19 Community Relief Programme
The bank’s 100×100 COVID-19 UK Community Relief Programme, which opened for applications yesterday, will award 100 donations of £100,000 to charities supporting vulnerable communities through the coronavirus pandemic.
The programme represents an initial investment of £10m from Barclays’ £100m Community Aid Package, which was launched in early April.
The 100×100 programme is open to charities with annual incomes of more than £1m, which are working to support vulnerable communities that have been affected by Covid-19 and the associated social and economic hardships created by the crisis.
Or email communityaidpackage@barclays.com
Deadline: Friday 22nd May
Youth Endowment Fund Grant
The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has launched a £6.5m COVID-19 grant round to support vulnerable children at risk of youth violence in England and Wales.
The fund encourages applications from PCCs, police, local authorities and the third sector.
Deadline: Wednesday 3 June, 12pm
Safer Communities: Extraordinary Grant Round
Projects working to safeguard vulnerable people and support their communities to deal with the fallout of Coronavirus are urged to apply for up to £6,000 from the West Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner’s (PCC) £150,000 extra ordinary grant round.
‘Keeping our Communities Safe’ will focus on applications which Safeguard vulnerable people and target Domestic and Sexual Abuse, including Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation, Mental Health, Fraud and Drugs and Alcohol, we are looking for projects which will:
- detail new or additional methods of help/support including online and telephone support
- support community based solutions,
- identify innovative ways to prevent crime and ASB and reduce demands on emergency services
- provide resources which support communities to safeguard themselves and those they care about.
Only projects which relate to the above priorities will be considered. Projects must be able to deliver amid the COVID 19 lockdown restriction and all work will deliver within 6 months.
Closing date: 1st May 2020
National Lottery Community Fund
For the next 6 months, all grants will be devoted to addressing the Covid19 crisis, and wherever possible, the application process will be accelerated. The funding pot will be up to £300 million. Any non-coronavirus related applications will be put on hold for during this period. Applications are now open for both Awards for All (grants up to £10,000) and Reaching Communities (grants over £10,000).
National Lottery Heritage Fund
They have put together a £50 million Emergency Fund to support the heritage sector in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Grants of between £3,000 and £50,000 will be available to organisations that have received funding in the past, are a current grantee or still under contract from a previous grant. Priority will be given to organisations with limited or no access to other sources of support, where heritage is most at risk, and where organisations are at risk of severe financial crisis.
Sport England
The Community Emergency Fund aims to help sport and physical activity organisations who are experiencing short-term financial hardship or whose activities have ceased due to the coronavirus crisis. Grants of between £300 and £10,000 will be awarded and in exceptional circumstances, they will consider grants of more than £10,000. As well as sports clubs and leagues, the funding is available for local voluntary and community organisations who play and important role in keeping people active ad who may need support to remain open.
Note: Due to a high number of new applicants, the funding will be paused temporarily on Thursday 14th May from 11:59pm. Check back for information about when to apply.
RAFT (Rapid Action by The Fore and Trusts) Fund
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, The Fore has launched the RAFT Fund, which consists of a number of emergency activities. It aims to help support small charities and social enterprises adversely affected by the crisis.
The RAFT Fund is seeking to ensure that effective small charities and social enterprise dealing with pressing social issues, from knife crime to domestic violence to climate change, child obesity, mental health and employability are able to meet the rapidly changing needs of their beneficiaries.
They also will also assist small charities to remain viable and prepare for delivery when the acute phase of the crisis is over. The fund will provide grants for high quality, well-managed small charities and social enterprises with great leadership doing vital work in their communities.
Grants are of up to £5,000 to any small charity or social enterprise in the UK with turnover of under £500,000.
Standard Life Foundation
They fund activities with the potential to create real and lasting change in policy, practice and attitudes to improve living standards and personal finances in the UK. They have made funding available for work directly related to the pandemic, addressing specific challenges and contributing to social change for those on low to middle incomes, with a fast-track 1-page application process. Grants can be from £5,000 upwards.
In addition, their usual funding round ending on 3rd June 2020, will go ahead as normal.
Garfield Weston Foundation
The charitable foundation donates over £80 million annually focusing on a wide range of charitable activity with a preference for organisations delivering services and activities direct to those in need in the welfare, youth and community sectors in regions of economic disadvantage. They are now focusing on funding activities providing immediate relief for the vulnerable and those experiencing hardship as a result of Covid19.
The Leathersellers’ Company
The charitable fund has created a fast-track application process for small one-off grants to fund small projects or cover unexpected costs up to £3000. They are inviting applications for UK registered charities supporting:
- the homeless or those at risk of becoming homeless
- provision of food or essential supplies
- victims of domestic violences
- nursing care for vulnerable patients
Applications will close for the summer on 11th May and organisations can expect a decision within 4 weeks of applying.
Creative Minds
Creative Minds is contacting existing project partners directly to invite them to apply for emergency funding of up to £3,000. The simplified application process will be open on Tuesday 14th April for 2 weeks. They are looking for innovative ways to support people with activities in their own homes and gardens, tackling isolation and loneliness, ideally with projects starting in May or early June.
If you are an existing grantee, you can contact Alex Feather to discuss potential ideas – alex.feather1@swyt.nhs.uk
Yorkshire Building Society
YBS Charitable Foundation has launched a £100,000 Coronavirus Response Fund to support smaller charities during the Covid19 outbreak. They will make donations of £250-£2000 to charities who are helping communities to cope with the impact of the pandemic. Organisations can apply for support with running costs, staff and travel costs as well as volunteer expenses.
Kirklees Council Ward Budgets
Kirklees Council have made more money available for councillors to help organisations and groups support people in our local places during the Covid-19 pandemic. £30,000 of extra funding is now available for each ward (which is a local place that 3 councillors represent) through their Ward Project Budgets. Please make contact with your local councillors if you are part of a group or project in need of urgent funding to support people in your local place during the outbreak. They also need to know which services are still runnning in their wards, and where there are gaps or where extra support is needed.
One Community Foundation Coronavirus Emergency Fund:
Grants of up to £2000 available
Crisis response – to help organisations meet the immediate and urgent needs of their communities. This could include purchasing food and essentials, equipment, PPE, any additional short-term staff costs, volunteer expenses. If you need money for other things (excluding to cover loss of income) email: Emma@one-community.org.uk
Delivering differently – to enable organisations to change the way they deliver their work to continue to meet the changing needs of their communities. This could include switching to digital channels to redeploying staff to boost capacity at a time of increased demand.
Grants of £2,000 are available if you require a more significant grant.
Application Process – One Community have changed their application form, significantly reducing the number of questions; this means the form will not take more than 15 minutes to complete.
If you have applied to the One Community previously, we will only require a bank statement showing the name of the organisation attaching to the form. However, if you have not applied to us before we will also need a copy of your governing document, this doesn’t need to be a scan of the document, a photo of the documents attached to the form will be accepted.
Funding will initially support:
• Groups that support the ongoing health and well-being needs of vulnerable people
• Groups and activities that support vulnerable people self-isolating
• Foodbanks and organisations working to combat hardship, including child hunger
• Community response coordination
• Volunteer costs for new and existing organisations responding to the pandemic
• Additional costs of working remotely and adapting service delivery
• Additional support for emotional, mental health and bereavement services
Arts Council Emergency Funding
The Arts Council is making £160 million of emergency funding available for organisations who need it and they’ve changed the funding requirements for those already in receipt of funding. Their priority is to ensure that the arts, museums and libraries are protected. Their package of support will be open to applications soon and includes:
- £90 million available to National Portfolio Organisations for rebooting creative work and alleviating financial pressures
- £50 million for organisations who are not in receipt of regular funding
- £20 million support for individual artists, creative practitioners and freelancers
Charities Aid Foundation Coronavirus Emergency Fund
In this time of national crisis, CAF has launched this rapid response Fund to help smaller charitable organisations affected by the impact of Covid-19. Grants of up to £10,000 will help them to continue to deliver much needed support to our communities across the UK.
This is intended as a rapid response fund, and we aim to make payments to selected organisations within 14 days of application.
We anticipate high numbers of applicants and unfortunately it is likely that we will not be able to offer a grant to all eligible applicants. The fund is open to registered charities, organisations registered with Companies House as charitable or not-for-profit, unregistered entities and social enterprises, and can cover core costs, staffing, volunteer costs, supplies, equipment, communications and other critical activity.
Note: Due to a high volume of applicants, this funding has temporarily closed. Check back for details for when to apply.
Now Closed
- McDonald’s in partnership with Food Drop, will be supplying foodbanks and charities with food from their stores. Register your charity here
- Martin Lewis – MoneySavingExpert, Martin Lewis has set up a grant schem for small registered charities, or local arms of bigger charities, across the UK to apply for grants from between £5k – £20k. There is a total of £1,000,000 in the pot and charities just need to fill out the form before Wednesday 25th March
Before you apply, please have a read here for more information and criteria.
