National Lottery Community Fund announces COVID-19 Charities Fund

Deadline: 10-Jul-2020

The National Lottery Community Fund is currently accepting applications to the COVID-19 Charities Fund for provide access funding for charities who have exhausted other avenues of support and are facing imminent closure.

The aim of the fund is to ensure that a balanced charitable sector, representative of the diverse interests and needs of Northern Ireland citizens, and of geographic spread, remains in place after the COVID-19 crisis has passed.

This funding programme will support this aim by providing financial support to charities who:

have lost income due to the impact of COVID-19
will not be able to cover unavoidable costs until September 30 2020.

Funding Information

This funding will be distributed as a one-off payment of up to £75,000 and is intended to cover a shortfall of unavoidable costs from 1 April 2020 to 30 September 2020.

Eligibility Criteria

Charities applying must meet all of the following eligibility criteria:

Have been formed prior to 31st March 2020 and be a lawfully operating charity as defined by the Charities Act (NI) 2008;
Have at least two unrelated people on its board or committee;
Have a UK bank or building society account in the legal name of the charity with at least two unrelated people who can manage the account;
Have been financially stable prior to the impact of COVID-19 and where The National Lottery Community Fund have no concerns regarding fraud or financial mismanagement
Be able to demonstrate that their fundraising or trading income has reduced due to the impact of COVID-19 and they have unavoidable costs to cover up to 30th September 2020;
Have unavoidable costs that cannot be covered by existing grants or public funding and are therefore at imminent risk;
Have not received other COVID-19 financial support from NI Executive departments:
- Department for the Economy Small Business Support;
- Retail, Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Grant;
- Microbusiness Hardship Fund.
£6.5m fund for charities released by the Department of Finance for Hospices and charities.

Ineligibility Criteria

Your charity is not eligible if it is a:

Community Amateur Sports Club
Community Interest Company
Non charitable social enterprise
Non charitable trading arm Your charity is not eligible if it:
- Was formed after 31 March 2020
- Submitted an Expression of Interest (EOI) after 31 March 2020
- Was called forward by Commission for registration but failed to apply
- Was called forward by Commission for registration but your application was withdrawn and you never reapplied when invited to do so
- Was called forward by Commission for registration but your application was rejected and you never reapplied when invited to do so
- Has informed the Commission for Northern Ireland that you have or are about to close.
- Has never informed the Commission of its existence.