Covenant Fund launches Funding Framework for the next 3 years
The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust (the Trust) will award £30 million in grants under the Covenant Fund over the next three years, according to its new Funding Framework.
The three-year Framework, developed with input from the Armed Forces community, sets out strategic themes for the Covenant Fund between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2027. These themes will be developed into funding programmes that will run in each year of the three year delivery period.
The Trust’s three-year Framework will build on the past themes and learning from Covenant programmes, the findings of a comprehensive consultation the Trust conducted in 2023, and broader research, including an in-depth literature review. Together, we’ll use these insights to create programmes that support the delivery of the Nation’s Covenant promise to our Armed Forces, Veterans, and their families.
We will continue to engage with the Armed Forces community, and the organisations that support them, as we develop these complex themes into strategic grant programmes that will make a real difference.
The first programmes under this Framework will open in Summer 2024.
What’s new?
Moving to a three-year cycle of funding delivery helps us to design and implement strategic funding programmes which will enable us to better support effective outcomes for Armed Forces communities. It also means a much clearer focus on where we will be investing our funds.
Making these changes will enable us to work more closely with our stakeholders in delivering the Covenant Fund and developing our strategic themes into programmes. This is instrumental in allowing us to ascertain and help define the needs of the community, explore how to achieve the greatest impact and ensure there is no duplication.
Gathering valuable input
In developing our first strategic Funding Framework, we ran a wide-ranging stakeholder consultation, having first considered themes under a literature review. In our literature review, we looked at published academic research on areas of need, published government strategies, and we also looked at the learning that has come through evaluations of programmes which we have run in the past.
Over 500 people took part in the consultation, which is the highest number of participants ever achieved by the Trust in a consultation exercise. The consultation was very important in informing the direction of our three-year Funding Framework.
Covenant Funding Framework
Our new Funding Framework has a strong focus on the principles within the Covenant of no disadvantage due to Service, and extra support for those who have given the most. It is built around themes of improving quality of life; ensuring that Armed Forces Communities are not disadvantaged; supporting those in need of special consideration and understanding complex needs and identifying solutions.
We’ll develop these themes into programmes. These are the themes that we’ll be tackling in our first year of delivery.
Find out more
We’re excited to have launched our first three-year Funding Framework! You can read the full document and also watch a recording of our recent webinar where we discussed the Framework in more detail here.