Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust: Veterans' Mobility Fund

Overview

This is a highly specialised programme. They will make a single grant to a Lead Organisation who will then make onward grants to veterans with physical disabilities via an externally delegated grant scheme.

Eligibility

To be eligible for this funding, you must be a registered Charity

The following additional eligibility requirements also apply.

1. 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 two years at the time of your application and able to provide published accounts for all two years if requested.
2. Your organisation must have a minimum of three unrelated trustees at the time of applying, and, if successful, throughout the life of your grant, and this must be verifiable at all times on the relevant charity regulators or Companies House website.

Additionally, you need to have:

• experience in providing direct support to people with physical disabilities
• experience of working with veterans
• evidence of robust governance to manage risks effectively.

Full eligibility guidance is available in their Programme Guidance Document.

What’s available

You can apply for a grant of up to £2,520,000 for up to 5 years to deliver a grants scheme that would make in-kind grants to veterans with mobility needs linked to their service.

Themes and priorities

The overall aim of this programme is that veterans should be able to access high quality support ensuring that the proposed mobility equipment solution for the veteran meets their needs and enables them to engage in activities that are important to them.

A strong application would be able to show that it could integrate the veteran with wider forms of support which could address wider needs that the veteran may be experiencing such as housing, isolation and loneliness or mental wellbeing.

It will also need to be able to integrate with other veterans’ services such as the Veterans Trauma Network in England.

What type of project are they looking for?

They are looking for projects that provide support for those with serious physical injury resulting from their Service, ordinarily in receipt of a War Pension or award from the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, by providing in-kind grants for mobility equipment that will receive regular use by the veteran.

Your project may also be able to support veterans who are currently awaiting a decision regarding a War Pension or from the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme in certain circumstances. Veterans who are receiving treatment through the Veterans Trauma Network, for example, may also be eligible.

Your project needs to be available to veterans across the UK.

The overall aim of this programme is that: Veterans should be able to access high quality support ensuring the proposed mobility equipment solution for the veteran meets their needs and enables them to be able to engage in activities that are important to them.

Applications will need to clearly show the following.

• How you will design and run a mobility grant scheme that is co-designed with involvement from veterans with physical disabilities.
• How you will ensure that the scheme is accessible to veterans across the UK.
• How you will ensure that eligible veterans seeking a mobility grant or equipment through the scheme will be able to access high quality advice to ensure that the proposed solution is the right fit for their needs and aspirations; with due regard given to their clinical needs.
• How you will demonstrate value for money, including how you will work with the NHS to ensure that you are not duplicating statutory provision.
• How you will ensure that the provision you will give is safe and based on established good practice.
• That you would follow good practice guidance in public procurement when purchasing mobility equipment for veterans and be able to demonstrate your understanding of this.
• How you will measure the impact and cost effectiveness of your work.
• That you will engage in the wider programme evaluation with external evaluators appointed by the Trust.

A strong application will be able to show:

• how you will ensure the grants you award will be good value for money
• that your organisation, or project partners within your application, have relevant experience of working with veterans with physical disabilities
• how you will put an effective communications plan in place to ensure that eligible veterans can find out about the scheme and access clear information on how they can apply
• how you will assess applications for equipment in a fair and equitable way
• how many grants you think you will award, what the financial range of the grants will be and what you will expect the grants to be spent on
• how you will monitor and manage the grants that you award
• how you will measure the overall impact of your grant funding programme
• how you will manage risks in the grants that you award, including safeguarding risks
• how you will work with organisations in the public and charitable sector to widely promote the availability of grants and ensure fair access
• how you will ensure that veterans are receiving all the statutory support they are entitled to so that grants from this Fund are clearly additional to those provided from the NHS and others
• what types of additional activities that you would deliver alongside the grants to enhance the overall impact of this programme.

Eligible Costs

They can pay for most of the things you’ll need for your project.

The Trust will consider applications that include a reasonable contribution to overhead/core costs. They would 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 will not fund the costs of purchasing a vehicle (for your organisation or a veteran), but they would pay for mileage costs on vehicles used by your staff and volunteers.

Your project might include the following costs.

• The costs of purchasing mobility equipment for individual veterans.
• Staff time for this fixed-term project.
• Additional consultancy or professional support where this delivers clear value to your project. This may include support from appropriately qualified health professionals such as Occupational Therapists.
• Reasonable travel costs including fares or mileage for project staff, volunteers or beneficiaries to enable participation in the research project.
• Purchasing items that will help you to deliver your project, such as additional telephones or laptops.
• 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 and inflation over the period of distribution of grants.

See Guidance Notes for further information.