Funding round up: March 2021

NPC report on ‘levelling up’ agenda

NPC has released a new report What will ‘Levelling Up’ pay for? analysing what the levelling up funds announced in the March 2021 budget can be spent on, and what this means for charities. They note that while there is some potential for social infrastructure (such as skills training), the new funding announced has limited scope for services such as youth provision, addiction, or homelessness, which many would think are important for levelling up our communities.

NPC are running an online workshop 10.00-12.30 on Tuesday 27 April 2021 which will bring together charities, funders, and policy makers from across different social sectors to share your views on civil society and the ‘levelling up’ agenda. Register for ‘Building back our social infrastructure: Rethinking government policy’ workshop.

The latest Respond, Recover, Reset Report for March 2021

NCVO has published the latest results from our Respond, Recover, Reset survey. This month’s report looks to the year ahead. It also looks at what voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations expect their income levels to be. Headlines include:

• 74% of respondents expect covid-19 to have a moderate or significant negative impact on delivering their objectives next year
• trading income is expected to be down by 17% in the next financial year than pre-covid levels
• 30% expect their financial position to deteriorate over the next month
• 43% indicated that their range of services has decreased since March 2020

You can check out more in the full Respond, Recover, Reset Report. As ever, you can also let us know your thoughts by getting in touch with the team.

Investigation into government funding to charities during the covid-19 pandemic

The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report on its investigation of the government’s covid-19 emergency funding package for the charity sector. The report finds that funding schemes were oversubscribed and that 92% of available funding had been distributed by 19 February (just over one month before the government expects all funding to be disbursed). The NAO also found that the government over-ruled officials and gave money to funders which may have been ineligible, and around £400k of suspected fraud was reported to police..

Law Family Commission on Civil Society call for evidence

The Law Family Commission on Civil Society has launched its call for evidence on how to unleash the full potential of civil society in the 2020s. They are looking to gather insights, evidence and examples that will help them understand the current landscape, and aspirations for our work over the next two years. The call for evidence is open to anyone – civil society organisations and participants, policy makers and businesses – until 10 May 2021.

Lloyds Bank Foundation opens funding for small and local charities 2021

Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales (LBFEW) has opened a £9.5m fund for small and local charities in England and Wales to apply for two-year unrestricted grants of £50,000. At least 25% of all funding this year will be allocated to charities led by and for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic communities. A separate funding strand for charities specifically working on racial equity will also open in the coming months.

Covid-19 government funding

The new Restart Grants scheme launched on 1^st April. The scheme supports businesses in the non-essential retail, hospitality, leisure, personal care and accommodation sectors with a one-off grant – up to £18,000 – to reopen safely as covid-19 restrictions are lifted. Charities can check their eligibility for the Restart Grants scheme.

Details of more than 2,700 organisations being offered nearly £400m in grants and loans to help the culture and heritage sector reopen and recover have been announced. The funding was reserved in the first round of the £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund.