The businessman Steve Morgan has pledged to give up to £1m a week to charities around the Liverpool area to help them through the coronavirus pandemic.
Morgan said his charitable foundation would donate up to £1m a week for at least the next 12 weeks to support charities in Merseyside, Cheshire and north Wales.
The Steve Morgan Foundation, which was founded in 2001, supports charities that help children and families, people with physical or learning disabilities, people who are socially disadvantaged and older people.
The charity is initially targeting charities in its geographical area that have incomes of less than £1m a year and deliver front-line services.
It will then consider those that are facing funding shortfalls because of a loss of income.
There is no financial limit to the amount eligible charities can request, although the foundation will consider awarding up to about 20 per cent of a charity’s annual income in quarterly instalments.
In pledging the funds, Morgan called on other entrepreneurs and philanthropists to follow suit.
“The £1m a week will go into a war chest because we are at war with coronavirus,” he said today.
“Aside from the obvious difficulties that the charities are facing, supporting thousands of disadvantaged people, this crisis has already caused substantial cash-flow issues.
“Normal day-to-day fundraising efforts that the charities undertake have been pulled from under them.
“We’ve already had more than 50 of our supported charities approach us for desperately needed funding and we are only at the beginning of this crisis.”
Morgan, who founded the housebuilder Redrow, boosted the foundation by donating shares worth more than £200m to it in 2017.
Charities in Merseyside, Cheshire and north Wales that are seeking urgent funding should email contact@stevemorganfoundation.org.uk in the first instance.
For more information, visit the foundation’s website.