How much money has Veterans' Foundation given to charities in January 2021?
At the end of January 2021, the trustees of the Veterans’ Foundation were able to make grants of £850K to 41 different charities or charitable organisations. This is a fantastic total and only made possible by donors to the Veterans’ Foundation and subscribers to the Veterans’ Lottery, so thank you for your continuing support. We hope to repeat the scale of grants, at least, every quarter this year. The last year has been particularly hard for many, many charities and these grants are so valuable to them.
As you may have detected, most of the organisations we support are of small or medium-sized wealth, but that does not prevent us supporting particular charitable initiatives of larger organisations. The range of activity that the grantees conduct to support the armed forces' community is wide-ranging; from pain relief to mental health support, from employment-enhancing initiatives to reducing homelessness and from reducing addiction to providing woodworking skills. The focus of these organisations is to help those that have challenges that prevent them from living fulfilling and positive lives.
Imagine the horror of living and working with continuous debilitating pain; the Pain Association Scotland has received a Veterans’ Foundation grant that helps them target veterans who suffer pain, in many instances caused during their military service. The UK Veterans Hearing Foundation helps veterans suffering from acute hearing loss, often linked with brain damage, to hear sufficiently to lead normal lives including gaining worthwhile employment that might otherwise have been unachievable.
For some that suffer from poor mental health, it is difficult to focus on relationships and to concentrate on the demands one faces in employment. Organisations such as Woodland Xperiences tackle mental health through eco-therapy and activities based in a woodland setting and Phoenix Heroes in Colchester uses fishing and peer-to-peer support to tackle PTSD. Both organisations now have Veterans’ Foundation grants to push on with their programmes.
Unemployment causes huge difficulties for the veterans concerned and their families. Being able to earn an income pays the incessant bills and provides cheer and wellbeing to families. TechVets is working with RFEA to provide a bridge for veterans and service leavers into cyber security and technology careers; the PATT Foundation will employ veterans and help tackle environmental issues. BuildForce Group will train veterans to gain careers in construction.
The Veterans’ Foundation has this month provided grants to two dog charities, Bravehound and Service Dogs UK, to develop their work with companion dogs, which can provide so much support to PTSD sufferers.
Other grants were given to many organisations who run drop-in centres and hubs of one kind or other. These hubs provide valuable social interactions for veterans and their dependants, as well as offering important support themselves, or by bringing in other specialists to help. FirstLight Trust operating across UK, the Veterans Garage in NW UK, the Bridge for Heroes in East Anglia and the Penparcau Community Forum all work in different but effective ways to give this invaluable drop-in support.
The trustees and staff here at the Veterans’ Foundation scrutinise the grant applications from many diverse organisations: charities, not-for-profits, community interest groups and so on. Although the Veterans’ Foundation gave out grants totalling £850K, the bids amounted to £2M so we have not been able to fund many other initiatives to help the armed forces’ community this time. Please keep supporting the Veterans’ Foundation through donations or by subscribing to the Veterans’ Lottery so that we can continue providing such important funding to help those in need, even those organisations that didn’t gain a grant this time.
