
The Community Anchors’ Fund – helping you to tackle poverty from the ground up
The Virgin Money Foundation believes everyone has the right to live in a vibrant and diverse neighbourhood and we want to support those vital local organisations in their efforts to help people to tackle the impact of poverty on their local community.
Children in the North are more likely to live in poverty than those in the rest of England – and increasingly so. Poverty is the lead driver of inequalities between children in the North and their counterparts in the rest of the country, leading to worse physical and mental health outcomes, educational attainment, and lower lifelong economic productivity. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this situation worse.*
The Virgin Money Foundation already funds the work of neighbourhood based community organisations working in the North East of England. We know that community anchor organisations play a vital, practical role in reducing the impact of poverty in the neighbourhoods in which they operate. Community anchors are home to food banks or community pantries, run furniture recycling schemes, provide guidance and training in cooking on a budget, support grow your own schemes, act as a base for benefit maximisation projects and debt advice, link people to sources of lower cost credit, tackle fuel and data poverty and provide employment support and training. Others operate in the private rented sector providing a good standard of housing and practical support to their tenants - many working with young people as they leave local authority care.
*Pickett K., Taylor-Robinson D., et al (2021) The Child of the North: Building a fairer future after COVID-19, the Northern Health Science Alliance and N8 Research Partnership.
Flexible funding – for day to day running costs, capital costs and project costs
We want to support you to do what you think is important!
The Virgin Money Foundation is making grants of up to £30,000 available to support the work of community anchors in their communities. You can apply for funding to cover the day to day running costs of your organisation or you can apply for project costs. The award can be spread over one, two or three years.
The Foundation is particularly interested in supporting projects which move people out of poverty and provide a longer-term sustainable solution. We are also interested in applications from community anchors who want to explore the impact of poverty with a view to using this information to inform local decision making.
Can I have two grants?
If I already have an award from the Foundation to cover running costs and I want to apply for a second award to support a project tackling poverty in my local area can I apply?