Southwark Community Response emergency fund to help manage the impact of Covid-19

We are currently experiencing uncertain times and it is clear that there is going to be a very real, material impact on people’s lives. United St Saviour’s charity has set up a new emergency response fund to help charities, social enterprises and community groups in Southwark manage the impact of Covid-19, which is currently open for the second round of funding.

The Southwark Community Response Fund complements the London Community Response fund, which is coordinated by London funders and launched on 27 March, meaning that over £5m is now available across Southwark for emergency financial support. The Southwark Community Response Fund is administered by United St Saviour’s charity, with applications going through the London Community Response portal.

British Land has contributed £20,000 to this local fund to provide additionality for charities, social enterprises, TRAs and community groups in Rotherhithe and Surrey Docks wards.

The first phase of funding applications have already taken place, which offered funding for urgent needs and grants of up to £5,000 for food and essentials. Last week, United St Saviour’s announced that they awarded over £44,000 in this first phase of grants through this fund for Covid-related emergency and urgent needs.

The second round of funding is now open to applications and is for larger grants, service transformation and ongoing work to support charities and community groups at this time. This round has two programmes that are taking applications from voluntary and community organisations – crisis response and delivering differently.

Grants of up to £10,000 are going to crisis response, and grants of between £10,000 to £50,000 to enable organisations to change the way work is delivered to ensure they can continue to meet the needs of communities.

More information and guidance on how to apply for either of these funding programmes can be found on United St Saviour’s website.

At British Land, we recognise the very material impact that Covid-19 is having on the communities at our places and we are committed to supporting them through this challenging time. In addition to contributing to the emergency response fund we are working with our network of local partners to identify how we can most effectively support them and the projects they run locally at this time. The British Land Board of Directors will be waiving 20% of their base salaries or fees for an initial period of three months effective 1 April 2020 which will provide additional funding to the £1.3m Community Investment Fund so that we can provide additional support for those most in need. We are also funding expert, strategic advice from the CASS Centre for Charity Effectiveness for the leadership of many of our community partners alongside bespoke programmes, providing employment support to help staff at our retailers and suppliers in their response.

To support Canada Water’s various local businesses, we have also released our smaller retail, food & beverage, charity and leisure customers from their rental obligations for three months (April to June). We hope this will go some way to supporting local businesses through this difficult time.

More information on what British Land is doing to support our communities can be found here.