Getting started with your grant

As a grant awardee, you’ll have received from us:

• an offer letter
• terms and conditions of grant
• information about payments.

You must accept your grant offer within four weeks of receiving it. This is really important, otherwise your grant offer will lapse.

If appropriate, you should also send us a draft copy of any partnership agreements you have in place with project delivery partners. Email us at info@covenantfund.org.uk

Please also carefully read and follow the instructions about providing bank details and claiming your first grant payment. We’re unable to make any payments until we’ve received all of the above information.

Watch our slideshow on signing and accepting your award using Adobe Click and Sign, and what banking evidence we’ll need from you.

Grant for more than one year? 

Then we’d like to meet you or chat over the phone to discuss your project plans and milestones, within the first two months of receiving your award. Get in touch at info@covenantfund.org.uk to arrange this with us.

For one-year grants, we’ll ask you send us progress of your project after six months.

This is the perfect time to tell us any changes to your project, ensure we still have the right contact details for your main point of contact and share the great work you’ve been doing.

You’ll also be asked to report at the end of your project and we’ll be in touch to let you know when.

For grants of more than one year, we’ll ask you to report more regularly, we’ll let you know how often in your offer letter. Your payments will be scheduled and released as and when we receive your reports.

You can find out more about reporting on your grant award, here.

Working with partners?

We can help you develop a partnership agreement. Send us your draft and we’ll be happy to comment and ensure it complies with our requirements.

Please don’t sign any agreement until we’ve seen and checked it, this is really important in ensuring your position as the accountable body for the grant is not undermined.

We’ve got more information about working with partners here.

Wondering when you’ll receive your grant?

We aim to make your first payment within 15 days, provided that you’ve submitted all of your correctly completed paper work on time. However, we recommend you allow up to 30 days. We strongly advise you not to begin your funded project until payment has been received in your account.

Keep in contact with us!

As well as gaining a useful insight into your project from the monitoring report(s) you’ll submit, we might also come and visit your project to gain a better insight. If you’re hosting an event or open day and you’d like us to come along, drop us an invite. We’re a small team, but we love getting out and about and visiting the projects we’ve supported.

Are things changing?

Again, keep in contact. Whether it’s a change to the main contact for your project, changes to your project, timescales or delivery, or even a change to your organisation. The earlier we know, the less disruptive it will be to your grant award. Get in touch at info@covenantfund.org.uk

Whether through local press, on your website, a newsletter or via social media – we’re sure you’ll want to promote your grant award and your project as it progresses.

It’s important that you use the Armed Forces Covenant logo, where relevant, to promote your grant. We’d also love you to use our logo too and we love a name drop! Do mention that your project was funded by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust if the opportunity arises.

We have a whole section on logos and branding to help you get to grips with using our logo correctly.

Sharing news of your funded project?

Why not send your press release to us, with a high resolution image/logo, and we’ll share on our External News section where we can.

Find out more about submitting a news story to us here.

We’re also quite social! If you tag us into something on Twitter (@CovenantTrust), Facebook (@CovenantTrust) or Instagram (armedforcescovfundtrust), we’ll try and give you a like or a share.