Banking group Barclays has launched a charity foundation to help tackle the impact of coronavirus and has committed £100m to it.
The Barclays Foundation will be giving out half of the £100m in the form of direct funding for charities, while the other half is a commitment to match employees’ donations, including senior figures in the corporate pledging a third of their salary.
Civil Society News has put together a list of emergency coronavirus funding currently available. It is regularly updated and can be found here.
Barclays to match employees’ donations up to £50m
Barclays' £100m Covid-19 Community Aid package will be split into two parts. Some £50m will go directly to charities helping vulnerable people during the crisis, mostly in the UK but also overseas.
Barclays said charities in the US, India and others will receive part of the funds, and that local programmes where Barclays employees live and work will be prioritised.
Focus will be on charities supporting vulnerable communities hit by the social and economic consequences of the crisis, helping elderly and vulnerable people and supporting NHS staff and other key workers.
The remaining £50m will go towards a donation matching programme. Barclays is committing £1 for every £1 donated by employees to a charity of their choice, again among those working to respond to the crisis.
Nigel Higgins, chair of Barclays PLC, Jes Staley, chief executive of Barclays Group, and Tushar Morzaria, group finance director, have all pledged to give a third of their salary to charity for six months, which will be matched by the corporate.
Including employees’ donations, the programme could result in up to £150m donated to charity. Any funds from the matching scheme that remain unspent after 12 months will be converted into direct funding.
Staley said: “As a bank we have been doing all we can to look after our customers, clients, and colleagues through this crisis, made possible by tens of thousands of amazing and dedicated Barclays people around the world who have been doing their utmost to keep our services running, and support the economy.
“We want to do more to back the communities in which we live and work, and to provide help to those who have been hardest hit by the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
“That’s why we’ve launched this community aid package, which we hope will make a positive difference, working with charity partners here in the UK and around the world to deliver help where it’s needed most.”
