Lloyds Banking Group will allocate £25.5m to its charitable foundations in 2021, maintaining the same levels of funding as in 2020.
The group’s profits fund four independent charitable foundations, supporting projects in England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and in the Channel Islands respectively.
In 2020, the four foundations received £25.2m from Lloyds Banking Group, so the total pledged for 2020 and 2021 has now passed £50m. Lloyds said this will allow the foundations to support more than 3,000 small charities.
The four foundations together have committed up to £3.3m in emergency funding for charities during the Covid-19 crisis, Lloyds said.
They have also committed to being flexible if charities need to spend grant funds differently to adapt their work to the crisis, and to relax some reporting criteria.
Earlier this month, Lloyd Bank Foundation for England and Wales awarded grants to 71 new charities to fund their work during the crisis. The foundation also announced a new round of funding for later in the summer, which will be open both to new applicants and to charities that are already receiving grants from the organisation. It aims to support at least 100 charities.
Fiona Cannon, managing director group sustainable business at Lloyds Banking Group, said: “Our four independent charitable foundations provide vital support to small charities across the UK and Channel Islands every year, and Lloyds Banking Group is proud to have funded them for almost 35 years.
“The support they provide local communities has never been needed more, so to ensure that they can continue their vital work, we have guaranteed that they will receive the same £25.5m funding in 2021 that they have received this year. We hope that this certainty will allow them to focus fully on continuing to support local charities and help Britain recover”.
Various major corporates have supported charities during the crisis, either by making one-off donations or setting up emergency funds. Barclays, for example, has launched a £100m package for charities in the UK and abroad.
Civil Society News has put together a list of emergency coronavirus funding currently available. It is regularly updated and can be found here.
