Charities and community groups can apply for a share of £250,000 each quarter over the next year from the Aviva Community Fund 2020.
Aviva said innovative projects that promote community resilience or improve financial capability and inclusion could apply for grants of up to £50,000 from the insurance company in the fund’s first funding round, which opened this week and will run until 11 February.
For the first time, Aviva’s 16,000 employees will decide which causes should receive funding. Each employee will be allocated £60 across the year to give to the project of their choice, and projects will be allowed to withdraw their funding only when they receive the full amount requested in their application.
The causes will also have the chance to learn crowdfunding skills through Aviva’s partnership with the online fundraising platform Crowdfunder, and will be able to ask members of the public for additional donations as part of the application process.
To be eligible, the projects must be run by a UK-based registered charity, community interest company, community benefit society or community amateur sports club with an annual income of less than £1m.
Jude Brooks, UK head of corporate social responsibility at Aviva, said: “We believe the small charities that make the most impact are the ones given the opportunity to innovate and test new ideas.
“That is why with our Aviva Community Fund programme we are focusing not only on facilitating funding for small charities with genuinely forward-thinking ideas, but also sharing knowledge from Aviva’s people and building the capabilities of causes through training and coaching. Our ambition is to enable causes to become self-sustaining over the long term.”
Since the Aviva Community Fund was launched in 2009, the fund has helped more than 2,000 groups and causes.
For more information about the fund, visit https://acf.crowdfunder.co.uk/.