Funding for organisations during COVID-19
The Gloucestershire Funders initiative has got off to a good start with much needed funding going to charities and voluntary sector organisations across Gloucestershire during this pandemic.
It’s hard to believe we only established Gloucestershire Funders a month ago. We feel we have been working together for months, if not years, already. We came together at the end of March as a group of charitable funding organisations in Gloucestershire to see how we could best support people, organisations, groups and communities across the county to cope with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We listened carefully to what people told us was needed, and then we acted on that as quickly as we could.
We use a simple application process, share applications between us all and in a weekly meeting we all identify which applications our different funds can support, and how much we are able to contribute. We then let everyone know almost immediately and each of us makes our contribution to each organisation independently.
Since we put out the information about our new way of working, we have (as of 13th May) received 92 applications asking for in the region of £1,496,261. As a group of funders, we have between us been able to agree £356,411 and this figure is rising. Here is a link to all the organisations we have been able to make a financial contribution towards so far
However, in most cases we have not been able to fully fund what we have been asked for, so all the organisations listed are still in need of further funds. The sorts of things we have funded so far range from emergency funds to sustain organisations, through to monies needed to reinvent what they do to continue providing support and connection in new ways during COVID-19.
We are also acutely aware that almost all the applications we have received are just to meet an immediate need; we can see that much more will be needed to enable people, communities and organisations to keep strong, long into the future.
In our immediate listening exercise, we also realised that particular groups of people may be at particular risk during the pandemic. As a result, we have started meeting collectively with organisations providing specific support to people, to think together about what we could do proactively to help people manage through this difficult time and into the changed world we are all facing.
To see the complete list of who is now a part of the collective of Gloucestershire Funders and to find out how to apply for funding for your VCS organisation read more here.