The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust has announced new funding programmes designed to support veterans, forces families and serving personnel recover from some of the wider impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Community benefit
The £6 million Sustaining Support for Armed Forces Communities programme will open in April. It will provide funding for existing charitable projects that give help to forces communities, but which need short-term support to continue, because of the impact the pandemic has had on charitable income.
Armed Forces charities, and charities that have an existing track record of providing support for forces communities, will be able to apply for a grant of up to £100,000 for a year. Organisations will need to show they provide support to people from forces communities, and that it would have a negative effect, particularly on veterans and military families, if this work couldn’t continue.
Melloney Poole, Chief Executive of the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust says: “The pandemic has had such a profound impact on the lives of so many veterans, forces families and serving personnel. These programmes will enable us to support and contribute to the post-COVID recovery work to address some of the challenges that it has brought to our communities.”
Popular programmes
Other funding programmes will be available from April 2021 include Round 2 of the NAAFI Fund: supporting projects within units that improve quality of life for serving personnel and their families. There will also be further rounds of the Force for Change programme, which provides small grants for local projects supporting forces communities to become less isolated and engage more in their local area.
Coming soon
In the summer, the Trust will open two further strategic programmes. The Supporting Veterans in Acute Hospital Settings programme and the Strengthening Delivery of the Covenant programme.
Further information on all these programmes will be available in due course as they go live. Visit www.covenantfund.org.uk for more.