Patient Organisations Recovery Fund

We will prioritise organisations which:
- Demonstrate a strong track record advocacy and/or support, delivered by an effective organisational structure of staff and volunteers/trustees

- Have aims and activities which are most closely relevant for this fund

- Have shown an ability to adapt your work to suit the current needs of patients

- Reach an appropriately broad demographic within your patient focus

- Regularly work with a meaningful number of patients

- Have reported income of £1m or less in your last financial year

- Request an appropriate amount of support for their size and core budget for 2021/22 financial year.

In making final decisions, we also aim to support a variety of patient organisations – by patient focus, activity type, size and geographic reach.

We will not directly support particular projects or research with this Fund; it is designed to provide funds towards core costs to support patient organisations in the UK to take steps towards their own recovery so that patients’ voices can continue to be heard.

Please ensure that you have read the programme details above carefully before deciding whether to apply. Is your organisation eligible and suitable for this fund? We anticipate a very high demand for this programme, and unfortunately we will not be able to fund all organisations which apply.

Apply:

To start a new application for this programme, please use the ‘new applications’ link below. You will be asked to log in to the online portal, or register if you have not previously used it, with your email address and a password.

Following registration, you will need to complete a short series of questions to ensure your organisation is eligible to apply. This is designed to save time for prospective applicants. If your answers do not meet the eligibility criteria, you will be able to recomplete the eligibility questions if appropriate (for example, if an initial answer was submitted in error).

After successfully completing the eligibility questions, you can then access the full online application form, answer questions about your organisation and upload supporting documents.

The application form can be saved and revisited on an ongoing basis. It does not need to be completed at one time. To return to a saved application form, please use the ‘existing applications’ link below.

Decisions:

Following a thorough selection process, we aim to notify all applicants whether they have been selected for a grant by the end of May 2021.  Decisions will be made by CAF, working with the advice of an independent committee with sector experience. The funding partners do not influence the funding decisions.

Due diligence/verification:

Organisations will all complete charitable verification by CAF and be asked to provide a bank statement to prove the bank account into which funds will be paid.

Organisations which are not registered with one of the charity commissions of the UK will be asked for further documentation, including governing document, most recent annual financial accounts, personal details of trustees/directors and in some circumstances further information may be required. These checks must be completed within 3 months of notification that you have been selected for a grant. If you are not registered with the Charity Commissions of England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, you must make sure that you have these documents ready before you apply.

Contracting and payment: 

If the verification checks are successful, your organisation will be sent a grant agreement and, once signed, funds will be transferred in one payment.

Fund expenditure:

We anticipate funds will be spent before 1 November 2021.

Reporting:

We would like to find out what impact these funds have had on our grantees and the patients that they support. In the autumn, you will be sent an Impact Report to complete, to tell us about how the funds have been spent and the difference the funding has made. We may contact you to develop a case study.

We will publish a list of grantees on 360 Giving, to promote openness and transparency in grant making.

Watch our video on how to write a great grant application

When completing your application form, please make sure it is as relevant, clear and detailed as possible.  You have the opportunity to tell us about:

- Your track record over the last 3 years – the patients that you work with, evidence of the needs that you are addressing, and how you have met that need

- The challenges your organisation is currently experiencing (eg operational, financial, logistical)

- How a grant to cover core costs for up to 3 months would most usefully be spent

- What difference this would make to the recovery of your organisation and the support you can provide for patients

- How you will measure the difference this would make, and how you intend to learn from this

- You can upload your 2021/22 budget and/or a cashflow to show your financial position.

- We will also check your Charity Commission or Companies House record and other publically available information to assess your application.

- Watch our video on how to write a great grant application

- Find out about about other sources of funding and support at the CAF Covid-19 Hub

- Explore our Survive. Adapt. Thrive. resources for charities facing crisis