Support as pandemic hits charities hard
Comic Relief has awarded 10 charities a share of a new £2.8million fund which is set to help hundreds of smaller grass roots projects across the UK.
As many small projects struggle to adapt their services and develop new ways of working during the pandemic, recent research found nine in 10 black, Asian and minority ethnic-led charities could cease operating if the lockdown continued and a projected 15,000 to 20,000 users per week would be unable to access services.
The Global Majority Fund aims to help address these inequalities by targeting services for the most at risk communities. The £2.8m fund includes contributions from Barclays, as part of the NET’s Coronavirus Appeal, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The Clothworkers’ Foundation and Comic Relief.
The selected 10 charities are ‘intermediary partners’ and have each been awarded between £275,000 to £440,000 to distribute to smaller UK projects at the forefront of delivering community Covid-19 response activities. Each intermediary partner has also been awarded an investment for grant management and organisational development.
Each partner will open their own funding calls from the end of February and set their criteria and grant amounts individually, with applicants applying to them directly.
Among them the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights was awarded: £288,000. The Scotland based charity will be funding projects tackling food poverty as well as mental health services, healthcare inequalities, gender based violence and homelessness.
Comic Relief and the National Emergencies Trust first collaborated last spring to create a £3.4million fund for projects led by leaders with lived experience of racial inequalities, working with communities disproportionately affected by Covid-19. Combined with the new second phase funding, this brings the total fund to over £6.2 million.
Jacqueline Onalo, Trustee, Comic Relief said: “This funding programme is a vital and long overdue way of reaching key smaller projects that are a lifeline to many marginalised people who are most at risk during the pandemic.
The Global Majority Fund is innovating our grants processes, and putting leaders with lived experiences at the forefront. I am proud of the hundreds of projects already funded by our first phase and I look forward to seeing the great work delivered across the UK by our new £2.8 million programme.
“In addition to this fund, Comic Relief is continuing to expand this important work by supporting The Baobab Foundation, the UK's first grant making foundation, led by and for communities experiencing racial inequity.”
