Exploring the impact of the Armed Forces Covenant: Local Grants programme on Forces communities

The Armed Forces Covenant: Local Grants programme awarded grants of up to £20,000 for local projects which supported two aims of Community Integration and/or the Local Delivery of Services for Armed Forces communities.

The programme ran for five years from 2015 to 2020 and delivered 712 grants worth £11,525,200.

Reach and Impact of the Armed Forces Covenant: Local Grants programme

The Trust has published two reports that explore the reach and impact of this programme.

There was wide distribution of grants throughout the UK, with projects funded in all four nations, and within different geographic areas within England.

Across all grants, funding was made available between the two funding strands of Community Integration and the Local Delivery of Services, with charities most likely to be delivering services.

While, overall, more funding was awarded to projects that addressed community integration needs, a significant amount of funding also went to projects that met both of the funding strands.

Meeting the themes

Community integration grants supported stronger links between Armed Forces and civilian communities, so they could better support, understand and live/work in harmony with each other. Where projects were addressing the Community Integration strand, there was evidence of joint activities between Armed Forces and civilian communities.

Local Delivery of Services grants were to provide better direct support to Armed Forces communities in the local area. This could be in any number of ways, from housing, financial, mental health, childcare or social activities.

The largest category of grant holders were charities that supported the Armed Forces community, receiving 62% of the overall funding.

Community Interest Companies (CICs) that met the eligibility requirements received 11% of the overall value of grants. Armed Forces units and schools also benefitted from the programme. Projects supporting veterans and Armed Forces families benefitted significantly from the programme.

The report looked at a selection of projects across the UK in depth, and found that there were common themes of collaboration, engaging communities, mental health support and referring or signposting people to targeted sources of help.

Projects were able to show benefits for those participating and provide evidence of collaboration and providing meaningful support to communities, as well as complementing the wider programme strands.