The National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF) today opened the £200 million emergency fund to support charities and community groups during the coronavirus pandemic.

You can read the guidance on who is eligible and how to apply here.

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 Government's new Coronavirus Community Support Fund will open for applications on Friday 22nd May at 10am. £200million of funding will be available primarily for small to medium organisations in England, distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund.

Further details, including how to apply, will be available on The National Lottery Community Fund's funding page on Friday 22nd May at 10am.

The Fund has two key objectives:

More information has been made available on how the government’s £750 million package of support for the charity sector is being distributed, as well as how organisations can apply for it.

The Charity Commission has published new guidance to examiners urging them to be vigilant for charities misusing funds during the coronavirus pandemic.

Independent examiners review the accounts of those charities with incomes below a quarter of a million.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP, Secretary of State for International Development has written to organisations delivering aid on behalf of the department to tell them that they could be paid in advance in order to meet ongoing costs.

In the letter, sent earlier this week, Ms Trevelyan also says that payments would continue in order to support “essential aid programmes. In the note, the minister says:

Pro Bono Economics (PBE) has published a new report that explores the VCSE sector’s contribution to the UK’s economy.

The government has published further information on how its £750 million package of support will be divided amongst the charity sector.

The funding was announced last month and includes and allocation of £360 million that will be distributed to charities directly by government departments.

A further £370 million will be distributed to small charities and in England this will be managed by the National Lottery Community Fund.

Charity Tax Group (CTG) has led a group of VCSE sector organisations in calling on the government to divert surplus council coronavirus funding to small charities, reports Civil Society.

Registered charities are now exempt from the rule which stipulates that half of their income comes from trading in order to be eligible for the Coronavirus Business Interruption Scheme.

The British Business Bank, which is the body overseeing the scheme, has changed the wording of the scheme’s conditions to say: