TikTok has introduced donation stickers, an in-app donation feature that lets creators add a call to donate to charity in their videos and livestreams. The videostreaming company will be matching donations made via these clickable buttons from today until 27 May 2020.
Donation stickers join various other stickers on TikTok. When a user clicks the donation sticker, they’ll be taken to a window where they can quickly and easily submit a donation without having to leave the app.
Under the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant (RHLG) eligible businesses in England in receipt of the Expanded Retail Discount (which covers retail, hospitality and leisure) with a rateable value of less than £51,000 will be eligible for a cash grants of £10,000 or £25,000 per property.” The guidance explicitly includes charities that meet this eligibility criteria. So if your organisation qualifies, you should be getting this grant. As examples: sports clubs or grounds, public halls, museums and art galleries. Word of caution, it is at the discretion of the Local Authority.
ACL Community and Family learning team are launching some online support and services for new and existing learners, in order to help support families with children who are struggling to keep them occupied during the coronavirus outbreak. Read more…
Our Project Lead, Emma Wardall, attended a free webinar from The Ethical Property Foundation around how charities can work to reduce their spend on property during the COVID-19 crisis.
The Ethical Property Foundation will be hosting a number of training webinars in the coming months, to help third sector organisations with the most important topics around property management. Upcoming webinars include:
The work charities do isn’t “nice to have”, it was critical two months ago, it’s critical now, and it’s absolutely critical to whatever comes next for all of us.
For the last 5 weeks we’ve been desperately campaigning for adequate support for charities affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Working with others across the sector, we’ve been pushing government relentlessly for a £4.3bn stabilisation fund to ensure the millions of people whose lives are enriched, made easier, and saved by charities, are still around to help them when this crisis abates. Many of you wrote to your MPs and shared your stories.
Third Sector Lab and SCVO Digital are working together to build a playbook for charities needing to quickly build out digital services.
A survey has been produced to find out the top priorities and issues being faced in regards to digital support during the COVID-19 crisis. To provide your feedback, please click here.
Third Sector Lab and SCVO Digital are also offering weekly Zoom calls for non-profits, community groups, social enterprises and other voluntary organisations. These calls are focused on helping the third sector think about how they can deliver information, support, and services using digital tools.
For more information on all of this, please click here.
Organisations across Essex have come together to help keep residents safe while they spend more time at home during the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Stay Safe at Home campaign focuses on five risks to people during this challenging time: domestic abuse, child abuse, accidental house fires, fraud and bogus callers.
The campaign has been developed by Essex Resilience Forum, which brings together public sector organisations across Essex including blue light responders, county and unitary authorities, district councils, the voluntary sector, health, highways, to form a coordinated countywide response in times of crisis.
Deputy Chief Fire Officer Rick Hylton, one of the co-chairs of the ERF, said:
“Our organisations are no strangers to working tirelessly to keep our communities safe, but now more than ever it’s so important to come together to help people feel safe and secure.
“We know there are certain areas that pose a higher risk during these difficult times, and we want to inform and educate our public around what they can do to avoid and lower these risks.
“Where people are unable to avoid these risks, we’ll work to signpost them to a safe place where they can get support.
“Regardless of the situation, our role will always be to keep people safe in their homes, and rest assured, we will continue to do everything we can to achieve this.”
Businesses across Essex are coming forward to offer their much-needed services during the Coronavirus crisis.
The Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC) for Essex is bringing together partners across the county to ensure a wide range of urgent needs are met.
The work is ensuring aid is being given quickly and businesses are gaining access to new opportunities to help them to stay afloat – or giving their time and resources for free.
The PFCC is working to match the needs established by the Essex Resilience Forum with the business solutions found via Essex Chambers of Commerce members.
Coronavirus affects the way we can worship, practise our faith and mourn and say farewell to loved ones.
Essex County Council have worked with representatives of local faith organisations to put together guidance to help you understand what you must do (including registering a death, funerals and mourning, and bereavement support). Guidance is based on advice from the Government and Public Health England.
Prepared for the Volunteering Coordination Group, Essex Resilience Forum
15th April 2020
Sarah Troop, MDCVS Director, Chair Volunteer Essex, Co-chair Essex Alliance. Written in consultation with ECVS Chairs Clive Emmett and Jemma Mindham.
Government Funding for charities
On 8th April Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a funding package for the voluntary and community sector. This came after weeks of campaigning from national representative bodies such as NAVCA (National Association for Voluntary and Community Action) and NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organisations).
The funding announced was £750 million. It was referred to by Karl Wilding CEO of NCVO as a “good start” and it is 1.2% of the amount of financial support provided to businesses.
£360 million of the £750 million has been identified for specific purposes. Of this £200 million will go to hospices and this has been welcomed by the Hospice association. The remaining £160 million is intended for named charities such as St Johns Ambulance and Citizens Advice Bureaux and charities working in the specific areas of children’s charities ad charities supporting victims. This funding will not be available for grant applications but will be centrally allocated by Government departments.
£370 million has been made available to small to medium charities. In England, this will be channelled through the National Lottery Community Fund. It will support locally-focused charities doing most during the outbreak – such as delivering food and medicines and providing financial advice. This will be managed through the Awards for All process for grants with a maximum value of £10,000 although the NLCF have stated that efforts supporting the Coronavirus are the main focus of all their funding including the larger Reaching Communities fund.
£20 million will be match funding for the “Big Night In” fundraising appeal due to take place on the 23 rd April. Funds raised on this night will be split between Comic Relief and Children in Need for distribution through an open grant process, again focusing on corona virus response.
Central government funding is not available for charities affected by loss of or threats to funding for business as usual to shore themselves up and stabilise. NCVO estimate the loss to the sector over a 3 month period is around £4 billion. Over half the charities that responded to a survey by the Directory of Social Change said that they will collapse within six months if they don’t get additional help. A useful summary of the findings of this survey
can be found here: www.dsc.org.uk/content/over-half-of-charities-could-disappear-within-6-months
Other Funding options
A number of grant makers have announced support for charities to respond to the Corona outbreak including
The National Lottery Community Fund prioritising coronavirus response for the next six months on all funding programmes
The National Emergencies Trust have distributed over £5 million across the UK. In Essex this is being managed by the Essex Community Foundation who have set up the Essex Coronavirus response and recovery programme and has to date given grants of a quarter of a million pounds. They will consider applications that include some sector stability elements
The Charities Aid Foundation announced a £39 million pound fund for community response. This is now closed to applications
Barclays have announced the creation of the Barclays Foundation initially to provide a COVID-19 Community Aid Package of £100 million to charities working to support vulnerable people impacted by COVID-19, and to alleviate the associated social and economic hardship caused by the crisis.
Tesco bags of help are making grants of £500 to support communities to provide supplies to people affected by coronavirus
Nationwide have announced a community grants scheme opening in June to help further support the housing emergency, particularly focused on the impact of the coronavirus
Persimmon Housing have announced 2 special grants schemes around the coronavirus – one for the over 70s and one for children and young people specifically around health, sport, education and the arts.
The Charity Excellence Framework has published a Covid-19 Funder Toolkit for the sector, which can be found here.
Flexibility for grant holders
Covid19 funders is a website that has been set up to enable grant making bodies to pledge to be flexible during the corona outbreak. This includes:
Adapting activities
Discussing dates and timescales
Financial flexibility
Listening to grant holders
The full list of funders who have signed up to this pledge can be found here: covid19funders.org.uk
