The National Lottery Community Fund received a record number of funding applications on the day its coronavirus emergency fund opened, the grant-maker has said.
On Friday, the funder opened applications for the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, which will distribute an initial £200m of emergency government support for the sector in England.
It is part of £310m that will be distributed by the NLCF, with the remaining £110m expected to be made available once any lessons from early distribution of the £200m have been identified.
Applications for funding are being assessed in the order in which they are received, which led to the training and publishing charity the Directory of Social Change warning last week that charities should act quickly if they wanted to apply.
An NLCF spokeswoman told Third Sector that a record number of applications totalling “multi-millions” of pounds had been received by the grant-maker on Friday.
She declined to provide precise figures on either the number or total value of applications received.
The grant-maker had said it expected the funding to be heavily oversubscribed.
Applications are still open for the fund, the spokeswoman said.
Organisations in England can apply for funding of between £300 and £10,000 to cover six months’ expenditure.
A separate fund offers funding of between £10,000 and £100,000 for the same purpose.