Armed Forces Covenant Fund: Serving Families: On the Move

Overview

Projects must benefit forces families impacted by relocation.

Programme aim(s): To improve the quality of life for service families impacted by relocation as a direct result of service life by addressing some of the unique challenges and issues families can face, increasing support and boosting links to local communities.

Under the Serving Families: On the Move programme the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust will award grants of up to £50,000 for one-year projects aimed at improving the quality of life for newly relocated service families impacted by relocation due to service life.

Eligibility

They invite applications from:

• Registered charities with one or more of the charity commissions for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland
• Community Interest Companies (CICs)
• Local authorities
• Armed Forces units/bases

Your organisation must be based in the UK and delivery must take place in the UK only.

See Guidance for further details.

They encourage applicants to work with other organisations as part of your project. Working with other organisations is a criterion of some of their programmes. 

A delivery partner is an organisation which is either: 

• receiving part of the grant OR 
• their involvement in the project, through providing resources or some other means, is critical to the delivery of the project. 

If any of the organisations that you will be working with meet this definition, you need to read the guidance on delivery partners.

What’s available

You can apply for a grant between £5,000 and £50,000 in total towards a project being delivered over a period of up to 12 months.

Eligible costs

They can pay for most of the things you’ll need for your project or activity. This includes people’s time, costs of delivering work online or buying/hiring equipment. See Guidance for details.

It is highly unlikely that they will fund projects with budgets that are dominated by capital costs. They would not expect to fund the costs of purchasing a vehicle, but they would pay for mileage costs on vehicles used by your staff and volunteers.

Costs can include:

• Staff time
  • Staff time for this fixed-term project.
  • Direct project work or for admin or to manage volunteers that may be involved in your project.
  • Sessional staff or freelancers that you may need to run your project.
  • Appropriate clinical supervision for workers who are supporting vulnerable individuals.
• Travel costs
  • Reasonable travel costs
  • Fares or mileage for project staff, volunteers or beneficiaries to enable participation
    in the project.
• Items to support your project
  • Purchasing items that enable activities to take place.
  • Art materials; sports/games/outdoor equipment; supplies for breakfast or social hubs.
  • Purchasing items that will help you to deliver your project, such as additional telephones or laptops or IT equipment.
• Reasonable overheads
  • Reasonable costs for storing and transporting items, including wear and tear on private vehicles.
  • Reasonable overheads, which reflect the cost to your organisation of delivering this project, taking account of recent cost increases.

Themes and priorities

They want to support projects that create opportunities for increased integration by building stronger community links and improving access to existing services for newly arrived or relocated service families only.

Your project will need to contribute towards at least one of these outcomes:

• Families in a new posting have more accessible and sustainable information to support them to settle into a new and unfamiliar location.
• Newly arrived families report improved wellbeing by being introduced to and connected with activities provided in their new area.  
• Fewer newly arrived and relocated service families report feeling isolated or lonely and more service families say they have effective support networks.
• Families feel more able to navigate the challenges of relocation, because their relationships are stronger.

Project types

They are looking for projects targeted on supporting newly arrived and relocated families with a clear focus on change as they settle into a new area, by addressing one or more of the following outcomes. 

• Families in a new posting have more accessible information to support them to settle into a new and unfamiliar location. 
• Newly arrived families report improved wellbeing by being introduced to and connected with activities provided in their new area. 
• Fewer newly arrived and relocated service families report feeling isolated or lonely and more service families say they have effective support networks. 
• Families feel more able to navigate the challenges of relocation, because their relationships are stronger. 

Projects should provide support to prevent problems from occurring through preventative or early-intervention approaches for newly arrived and relocated families. They should provide support for those families currently experiencing stress or challenges related to the impact of relocation, where these needs are not being addressed in other ways. Tell them about the families you will be seeking to engage with your services, and how they are defined as ‘newly arrived’ or ‘relocated’. Activities should be targeted at those families and show impact in line with stated outcomes.

Example project ideas:

Families in a new posting have more accessible information to support them to settle into a new and unfamiliar location. 

• Inform newly arrived and relocated service families of existing statutory and welfare provision. 
• Ensure that provision is available and accessible when they need it most to provide support on issues that matter to them.

Newly arrived families report improved wellbeing by being introduced to and connected with activities provided in their new area. 

• Engage service families effectively with a range of existing activities in their local area.
• Raise awareness of existing services, to reduce duplication and simplify access.

See Guidance for further examples and details.

Applicant notes

• Achieving these outcomes requires collaboration and consultation with those families seeking support in their new location. They will ask you to explain in your application how potential beneficiaries have helped to inform your project design and how you know the project is needed. You project should look to address the immediate and emerging needs of newly arrived and relocated families of serving personnel. 
• They also welcome innovation where partnerships may not have existed before, to both increase knowledge and understanding of armed forces communities and build future capacity in both armed forces organisations and specialist non-armed forces organisations. By collaborative working they mean organisations working together for the benefit of the armed forces community ensuring long-term impact, value for money, and sustainability. 
• Your project idea does not have to be new. This programme welcomes continuation or extensions of existing work, where this provides a clear benefit and can also include funding for pilot projects or new ways of offering support. If you are applying for funds to continue existing activities, tell them about the impact of that work so far, and how this funding would further develop its scope and capacity over the funding period. If the project is for new activities, tell them more about how you identified these plans as appropriate to meet the need. The Trust can only fund projects that are in addition to existing statutory provision. 
• Your project should seek to remove barriers to participation for beneficiaries, to encourage engagement with the activities provided. 
• If your application is successful, they will also expect ongoing impact monitoring to enable you to deliver informed reporting, against the programme outcomes, back to the Trust.