The government has released an additional £150 million to support charities during the pandemic.

Oliver Dowden MP, Minister for Culture, Media and Sport announced that the additional funding would come from dormant bank and building society accounts and will be used to help charities, social enterprises and vulnerable individuals during the coronavirus outbreak.

 The funding will be used to help tackle youth unemployment, expand access to emergency loans for VCSE organisations and to help improve the availability of fair, affordable credit to people in vulnerable circumstances.

Of the £150 million:

• £10 million will be brought forward for the Youth Futures Foundation to help organisations who support unemployed, disadvantaged young people across the country into jobs.
• £45 million will be deployed by Big Society Capital to allow better access to investment including emergency loans for charities, social enterprises and some small businesses facing cash-flow problems and disruption to their trading following the coronavirus outbreak.
• Fair4All Finance will use £65 million to support affordable credit providers to increase access to fair, appropriate products and services for those struggling financially, providing them with an alternative to high cost loans.
• £30 million will go to Access - The Foundation for Social Investment who will support social enterprises helping people in vulnerable circumstances. They will make up to £10 million available for emergency support through social lenders while also developing a wider programme of recovery finance for the social sector.