Supporting Serving Families Overseas Grant Programme in the UK

Deadline: 15-Jan-2025

The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust has launched the Supporting Serving Families Overseas Grant Programme to support serving families stationed overseas.

It aims to help overseas bases, or UK-based charities working with them, identify and address challenges impacting the wellbeing of partners, children and young people during overseas deployments.

Funding Information

• Grants between £3K and £20K

Duration

• Project length: 12 months

What types of projects are they looking for?

• They are looking for projects which offer new forms of targeted support for the families of serving personnel posted and living overseas.
• These projects should help enhance serving families’ lives by enabling them to thrive in their new communities and build networks of support to improve their wellbeing.
• Your project will need to meet one or more of the following outcomes.
  • Provide new forms of personalised and targeted support in location for partners, young people, and children and their wellbeing whilst posted overseas.
  • Increase serving families’ knowledge of existing services and recreational provision.
  • Reduce isolation and the impact of loneliness in country for partners, young people and children.

Eligibility Criteria

• To be eligible for this funding you must be one of the following:
  • An overseas Armed Forces unit, base or defence location
  • a charity registered with one or more of the charity commissions for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland working in partnership with an Armed Forces overseas unit, base or defence location. Charities should be constituted to deliver services overseas.
• The following additional eligibility requirements also apply:
  • Armed Forces units/bases
    • Your unit must be based at an overseas base or defence location.
    • Your main Point of Contact will ideally be an individual who will remain within the post for the duration of the project.
    • They would expect units that apply to have engaged with, and look to work in partnership with, external organisations who can provide specific services to meet the needs of the targeted group. These do not need to be Armed Forces specific organisations.
  • Charities
    • Your organisation must have been registered in the UK (with one or more of the charity commissions for England and Wales, or Scotland or Northern Ireland for at least one year at the time of your application and able to provide published accounts for all three years if requested.
    • Your organisation must have a minimum of three unrelated trustees at the time of applying, and, if successful, throughout the life of your grant. This must be verifiable at all times on the relevant charity regulator’s website.
    • The following restrictions may apply:
      • Organisations cannot apply more than once per funding round under this programme.
      • If they receive more applications than they can support, they may give priority to
      • projects that help ensure that Armed Forces families located in different parts of the world, and in each of the Services, can benefit from this programme.
      • projects that offer support for those affected by the longest deployments overseas.

Ineligibility Criteria

• Organisations seeking to make a profit from their project. For example, an organisation could not be awarded a grant to develop a training course which it then charges the Armed Forces community to attend.
• Childcare providers (including early years).
• Community Interest Companies (CIC).
• Schools, regardless of their charitable status.
• An individual.
• A charity which doesn’t have substantial recent experience of supporting Armed Forces communities or is newly registered, unless working in partnership with the Armed Forces charity or Armed Forces unit.
• A charity that is not constituted to deliver services abroad.
• A charity that is registered overseas and not in the UK

For more information, visit Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust.