Charity

Charities in Scotland that are in financial difficulty as a result of the coronavirus pandemic are being invited to apply for a share of a £20m emergency fund. The Third Sector Resilience Fund, delivered by the social enterprise agency Firstport, Social Investment Scotland and the Corra Foundation, will provide grants of between £5,000 and £100,000

More than 560,000 people have signed up to be NHS volunteers during the coronavirus pandemic. The government had targeted the recruitment of 300,000 volunteers to help the NHS cope with the pandemic, but has already almost doubled its target, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Twitter. This included 400,000 people signing up to volunteer

Big Society Capital is to launch a £100m emergency loan fund to help charities deal with cash-flow problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic. BSC said its Emergency Liquidity Facility would allow trading charities and social enterprises to borrow money for working capital or to help with cash flow. Further details about the scheme will be

A local politician has raised fears that small charities will be excluded from the government’s £10,000 small business grants scheme, aimed at supporting organisations through the coronavirus outbreak. The government had announced that small businesses would be eligible for grant funding of £10,000 to help them weather the Covid-19 pandemic. But a letter from Richard

(New York March 26, 2020) – CARE’s analysis of INFORM Global Risk Index data has found that the world’s ‘highest risk’ countries have three times higher exposure to epidemics, such as COVID-19, but also have a six times higher risk in terms of their access to healthcare compared to the world’s lowest risk countries. Somalia, Central African

Two former party leaders and another two former charity ministers have written an open letter calling for emergency funding to help the charity sector survive the coronavirus crisis. In a letter published in The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Ed Miliband, a former leader of the Labour Party who was also Minister for the Third Sector between

The Charity Finance Group and the Small Charities Coalition have called on the government to rethink its small business grant fund after it emerged that small charities would not be eligible. The government had announced that small businesses would be eligible for grant funding of £10,000 to help them weather the Covid-19 pandemic. But only businesses that

The emergency appeal to raise funds for charities affected by the coronavirus pandemic has raised more than £11m in its first week. The National Emergencies Trust, which launched the appeal last Wednesday evening, said it had begun distributing the first tranche of funds to local charities through community foundations across the UK. The funds include

Oxfam GB is to furlough about two-thirds of its 2,100-strong UK workforce because of the coronavirus pandemic. The charity said today that the affected staff, most of whom work in its trading arm, would be sent home until at least 1 June. Last weekend, Oxfam closed all of its UK stores, which bring in about

An appeal for volunteers to support the NHS during the coronavirus outbreak that was launched yesterday evening has reached 170,000 sign-ups overnight. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, last night announced the move to recruit 250,000 volunteers to help the NHS. The volunteers are being asked to help the NHS support the 1.5 million people who

The Prime Minister has said the government is considering a “package of measures” to support the voluntary sector as it faces potentially catastrophic falls in income because of the coronavirus outbreak. Major voluntary sector bodies have been increasing the pressure on the government in recent days to provide urgent financial aid to the sector in

Charity leaders have increased the pressure on the government to take immediate action to support charities that are faced with losing billions of pounds of income over the coming weeks because of the coronavirus outbreak.  On Friday, a group of major charity umbrella bodies launched the #EveryDayCounts campaign, which is calling on Rishi Sunak, the

Press Release Newbury, Berkshire, 24th March 2020 – Local charity Greenham Trust will match any donations made by the public and local businesses via its online appeal up to a huge sum of £100,000! This will generate a fund of £200,000 to be distributed through local charitable and voluntary organisations that are offering support to

Tributes have been paid to Danielle Atkinson, head of individual giving at Plan International UK, who died in the early hours of yesterday morning.  Fundraisers and colleagues described Atkinson, who was 46, as “funny, feisty and fabulous”, “a brilliant fundraiser” and a “lovely person”. Twitter users have been paying tribute to her using the hashtag

(Amman, March 24, 2020) — As the first case of coronavirus is confirmed in Syria, CARE is deeply concerned about the health and safety of over three million people in Northwest Syria, over half of whom are internally displaced and live in crowded camps. With the inability to test for the virus, many more cases in

A group of more than 100 MPs and peers from a number of parties has called on the government to provide urgent funds for the voluntary sector in the face of an estimated loss of more than £4bn of income over the next few weeks. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations said on Friday that

The supermarket Asda has donated £5m to the food charities FareShare and the Trussell Trust to help meet demand for basic supplies during the coronavirus pandemic. The donation will help both charities deal with an expected significant increase in demand in the weeks ahead caused by the ramifications of the spread of Covid-19, the supermarket

As is so often the way in moments of crisis, the charity sector is on the front line of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on everyday life in the UK. According to Jane Ide, chief executive of the infrastructure umbrella body Navca, the impact could prove fatal for many civil society organisations.

The National Citizen Service Trust narrowly missed its participation targets, the latest accounts show. The trust’s accounts for 2018/19, which were published yesterday, show that 99,674 government-funded participants took part in NCS programmes in the 2018 calendar year, against a target of 100,000. The total number of summer programme participants was 85,938, against a target

The Charity Tax Group has written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking for tax measures to be relaxed immediately to help the voluntary sector through the coronavirus pandemic, including allowing charities to keep Gift Aid for cancelled events. The letter to Rishi Sunak, sent yesterday, says charities should be able to retain Gift Aid

Charity sector leaders have warned the government that the sector faces “imminent collapse” if funding is not immediately made available to help during the coronavirus pandemic. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the Charity Finance Group, Acevo and the Institute of Fundraising have joined forces to ask the government to provide guarantees similar to those offered to

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

The parenting charity NCT has moved its antenatal classes online so it can continue to support new parents while its usual face-to-face classes are halted.  The charity said it had put the measure in place in response to social distancing advice from the government.  NCT aims to support new parents through their first 1,000 days,

(Geneva, March 19, 2020) — As the world faces the unprecedented challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, international aid organization CARE commits to adapting its programming and scaling up its activities wherever possible. The increase in programming will mainly focus on support for clean water and sanitation services in countries with weak sanitation infrastructure.  “At the moment,

Volunteers could be paid by the government for up to four weeks as part of measures to deal with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. An emergency coronavirus bill presented to parliament this afternoon proposed that employees would be able to take emergency volunteer leave in blocks of two, three or four weeks, which would

19 March 3:30pm: Chief executive of NAVCA Jane Ide calls on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to give the Voluntary and Community Sector “equitable treatment” – 900k employed in VCS– front line VCS crucial to immediate crisis response being planned by government– wider sector will be critical to recovery phaseThis is not soft & fluffy. We CANNOT

Charities should “reflect seriously” on whether to continue public fundraising during the coronavirus outbreak, the Institute of Fundraisingand the Fundraising Regulator have warned, as the IoF raised the possibility that charities will lose hundreds of millions of pounds of income. In a joint briefingpublished today, the membership body and the regulator said charities should carry out

Sector umbrella bodies are calling for charities to be explicitly included in economic measures set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night to mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19 has killed at least 71 people in the UK, and cases and deaths are both expected to rise significantly in the

Los Angeles (March 16, 2020) – ​FaZe Clan​, the world’s most popular esports and gaming entertainment collective, is bringing the global streaming community together for positive action during the current pandemic. Through a new initiative they’ve created called #FIGHT2FUND​, ​FaZe Clan​ will lead the gaming and entertainment communities in a collective effort to raise funds for

The Charity Commission has said it will consider granting an extension to any charity that is struggling to file its annual return because of the coronavirus pandemic.  The regulator said in a statement that it wanted charities to be reassured its approach to regulation would be “as flexible and supportive as possible”.  It said: “Charities’