CAF Resilience Fund: what has Phase 2 achieved so far?
The CAF Resilience Fund aims to support individuals and communities hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Phase 1 was delivered as emergency funding in late 2020 and early 2021. It saw approximately £19.3 million distributed in grants to 645 charities in England, to help them survive the initial shock of the pandemic and resulting lockdowns.
What Phase 2 of the fund aims to do
With the pandemic and subsequent cost-of-living crisis, the need for UK charities to be resilient has never been more apparent.
Phase 2 of the CAF Resilience Fund is designed to help charities move beyond survival and to adapt so that they can look to the future, be sustainable and thrive.
The fund focusses on three cause areas:
• Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities
• People living with a disability
• Young adult re-skilling
What support the fund has provided
Since summer 2021, 102 organisations have been awarded:
• A main grant to enable charities to adapt and thrive, by funding new or existing activities with clear links to organisational aims and sustainability of both the services and the organisation as a whole
• An additional resilience support grant of up to £20,000 to access external expertise to help strengthen their sustainability for the future
• Access to CAF’s Tailored Support Programme to help organisations achieve their resilience goals
Why the grants were shaped this way
At Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), we aim to deliver grants that are effective and impactful. We understand that core costs need to be covered – but that’s not sufficient for organisations to survive. The additional resilience support grants were provided to give organisations a chance to shape their future by pin-pointing exactly what is needed for organisational resilience and sustainability.
The Tailored Support Programme was created to help charities identify and carry out the change needed within their organisations to become sustainable. With a roadmap workshop, alongside external expertise, the aim was for organisations to be empowered to make changes to their organisation, as after all, they know their organisation better than anyone else.
Additionally, we are collaborating with a range of sector partners working in these three cause areas to widen the distribution of grants at a local level. The sector partners are experts in their cause area, with deep knowledge of the communities they support, which in turn will maximise the reach and impact of the programme.
What the programme has achieved so far:
• £14,997,693 awarded to 102 charitable organisations
• An increase in understanding among the grants holders of resilience from 38% to 77%
• An interactive platform provided to all grant holders to access information, share ideas and network
• £4.5 million will also be provided to sector partners
• Online events held to provide guidance, networking and learning opportunities
• 81% of grant holders responded 10/10 to likelihood of recommending the CAF Resilience Fund
Over the remaining months of the programme, we aim to continue growing charities’ resilience further so they can withstand any future crisis and keep their vital work going.