New Covenant funding model to better serve Armed Forces communities

March 11, 2024

Following on from our Armed Forces Covenant consultation last year, we’re excited to announce the latest developments in our plan to target Covenant funding where it’s needed most.

Over the next three years, we’ll address the challenges and disadvantage faced by our serving and Veteran community, and their families, while extending crucial support to those who’ve made extraordinary sacrifices.

Community consultation

Last Summer, the Trust ran a consultation to discover how the Armed Forces community thought Covenant funding could make the biggest impact now and in the future.

We received our biggest ever response to a survey, and we want to thank each of the 500+ people who shared their thoughts and experiences with us.

Using your feedback

Since the consultation closed, we’ve been busy analysing all the responses we received.

Your feedback highlighted key areas where the Armed Forces community wants greater support.

• Reducing stress and challenges that are unique to the Armed Forces community
• Mental health and wellbeing support
• Addressing loneliness and isolation
• Holistic family support 

Future Impact

Adopting this three-year (2024-2027) funding model allows us to significantly impact the lives of those in the Armed Forces community. Importantly, it will also allow our grant applicants more time to look ahead at their needs and plan their work and next moves accordingly.

We’ve listened to your thoughts on how best to approach new programmes going forward and we’re delighted that many of your suggestions align with what we’ve already been trying to achieve.

• Prevention
• Long-term impact
• Targeted approach
• Collaboration between projects and organisations.

These principles will be at the core of each of the programmes we’re due to launch.

A host of themes emerged from our consultation responses that showed us what matters to our Armed Forces community. The range of topics included: 

• Mental health and wellbeing
• Transition after Service
• Cost of living
• Support with family life 
• The challenge of mobility on education, employment and isolation.

We will ensure these are woven into the design of our future programmes to help deliver support exactly where it’s needed most.

Building on our past successes 

In addition to using the over 500 responses to our consultation, we’ve drawn upon the wealth of data, feedback, outcomes, successes, and lessons learned from the previous funding programmes we have run.

The Trust has a longstanding commitment to supporting programmes that address loneliness and isolation. Where need has been evident, we’ve focused on specific groups within the Armed Forces community who are traditionally underrepresented. We extend our support not only to those who serve and have served but also to those who stand by them.

Drawing on this extensive experience, we’re well positioned to develop impactful funding programmes for the coming three years.

But getting it right takes time. We are currently developing our three-year programme plan and details of the grant programmes we’ll launch in 2024/25. We expect to launch the first of these in the Spring.

What comes next?

We’ll publish the full results of our consultation shortly, and there will be further opportunities to work with the Trust in developing our work for the next three years.

Look out for more updates on our Covenant Fund programmes for 2024-2027. You can join our mailing list to get the latest news straight to your inbox. Just scroll to the bottom of this page to add your details.

Find out more

The Trust is hosting a Lunch & Learn webinar on Thursday 25 April, 12 noon to 1pm, where we’ll share more of the findings from our consultation and how they are underpinning the Covenant fund programmes we are currently developing.

Join us to find out more.