Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust: Embedding Prevention of Veteran Suicide programme 2024/25

Overview

Under the Embedding Prevention of Veteran Suicide programme, the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust will award one-year grants of up to £50,000, or for projects which help to enable systemic change and long-term, sustainable impact, incorporating key findings from the Trust’s One is Too Many programme.

Overview:

• Grants available: One-year grants up to £50,000. Two-year grants up to £100,000
• Project length: Up to two years
• Programme aim(s): To enable systemic change and long-term, sustainable impact, incorporating key findings from the Trust’s ‘One is Too Many’ programme. Supporting staff who work with vulnerable beneficiaries, addressing the needs of under-represented groups within the Armed Forces community, and addressing and improving mental health wellbeing, help-seeking, and stigma in Veterans.
• Application closing date(s): 12 noon, Wednesday 2 October 2024
• Awarded projects to start by: January 2025

Eligibility

They invite applications from:

• UK-based registered charities
• Statutory organisations

The following additional eligibility requirements also apply:

Charities

• Your organisation must have been registered in the UK (with one or more of the charity commissions for England and Wales, or Scotland or Northern Ireland for at least three years at the time of your application and able to provide published accounts for all three years if requested.
• Your organisation must have a minimum of three unrelated trustees at the time of applying, and, if successful, throughout the life of your grant. This must be verifiable at all times on the relevant charity regulator’s website.

Statutory organisations

• Organisations that fall within this category cannot apply for statutory healthcare delivery work, or for work that has a core focus on the delivery of the Armed Forces Covenant Duty

What’s available

You can apply for a grant of up to £50,000 for projects lasting one year, or up to £100,00 for projects lasting two years.

In exceptional cases, the Trust will consider awarding an enhanced grant to deliver an additional element. You can request up to a maximum of £50,000 to enhance your project. You may apply for an enhanced award for either a one-or-two-year project. See Guidance for further information.

What can funds be spent on?

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.

The Trust will consider applications that include a reasonable contribution to overhead/core costs. They expect to see this reflected within your budget breakdown.

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.

Themes and priorities

They want to support projects that aim to enable systemic change and long-term, sustainable impact, incorporating key findings from their ‘One is Too Many’ programme.

Your project will need to address one of the three key outcomes:

• To support staff who work with vulnerable beneficiaries
• Address mental health wellbeing, help seeking, and stigma within the Armed Forces community
• To address the needs of under-represented groups

They are particularly seeking applications from organisations looking to collaborate with stakeholders and service providers, to widen the potential reach and benefits of the project and provide a common way which is safe, streamlined, Veteran-centred and holistic in nature.

Your project could be a continuation of an already proven project, or a new intervention or project that meets the programme outcomes. If your project is a new project or intervention, you will need to tell them/show them how you have got the knowledge and experience in this area to deliver success against the programme outcomes. You should demonstrate that the project you are seeking funding for has a strong focus on one of the three outcomes above. An application that deeply focuses on one outcome, may be stronger than an application that attempts to address all three.

What should your application show them

• You’ll need to clearly show them that you have the skills and experience necessary to carry out your project.
• They won’t fund projects which duplicate existing provision, or which look to provide clinical services or support which are a statutory requirement. So, you’ll need to show them how your project complements other work taking place
• You’ll also need to show them what evidence you have to support the approach you seek to take and, crucially, how people from Armed Forces communities have helped to shape this.
• You will need to show them that you clear plans for how you will measure the impact of the project. They expect you to use their Impact Hub as part of the programme.
• They want to fund projects with sustainable benefits. This means that they are interested in what will happen in the long term, after your funded project has ended. The application form will ask questions about sustainability which are relevant to the individual grant programme.
• If they award you funding and you plan to work with one or more delivery partners, it will be a term and condition of your grant offer that you have a formal signed partnership agreement with them which aligns to their terms and conditions.
• The Armed Forces Covenant works to deliver real change to Armed Forces communities. The projects they support need to be carried out to the highest possible ethical standards. Therefore they need to know that you have the skills and experience to work with the groups of people that your project focuses on and can ensure that they are kept safe; and that you take an ethical approach to your work. You can access their ethics resources here

Who are the beneficiaries

The direct and primary beneficiaries must be Armed Forces Veterans with poor mental health, their families, and those who are caring for/supporting these vulnerable beneficiaries. For the Trust, family is considered anyone who plays a significant role in a person’s life. This includes but is not limited to spouses, civil partners, cohabiting partners in committed relationships, children under 18, and relatives such as parents, siblings, and grandparents who live with, are financially dependent on, or are cared for by the Service member or partner.

The Trust also recognises that family can take forms based on deep seated emotional ties outside of traditional legal and familial definitions. Trustees will fund projects that strongly evidence need and may prioritise projects where support is limited to family members who are most directly impacted by the Service member’s situation. Beneficiaries of your project can be direct or indirect. Your direct beneficiaries are usually the people you are directly targeting with your work. For example, Veterans aged 45- 60 years. They are the people who will access the services or participate in activities paid for by the Trust’s grant. However, others outside of your target group(s) may also benefit from your project. These are called indirect beneficiaries. For example, the family members of the Veterans aged 45-60 years.

See Guidance for further information.