Steve Morgan match-funds £10m Government support for North West charities
More than 100 North West charities are set to benefit from a £20m fund after Redrow founder Steve Morgan match-funded a £10m Government award.
The money is coming from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), which has a new £85m Community Match Challenge Fund.
Under the terms of the DCMS funding the £10m award has to be spent by March 31, 2021, at which point the Steve Morgan Foundation match-funding will kick in.
Morgan said: “Part of the funding will provide support for around 100 North West-based charities and community organisations with annual income of £5m or under.
“The remainder of the £20m will go to medium sized charities addressing national issues including cancer, type 1 diabetes and helping disadvantaged young people, all of whom face a disproportionate impact from Covid-19.”
The four larger charities that will be supported are Maggie’s, JDRF, Onside Youth Zones, and The Reader.
The philanthropist has already given out £50m in grants and committed another £250m since launching the Steve Morgan Foundation in 2001.
The new initiative is separate to the Covid-19 Emergency Fund that he launched in March 2020 with the promise of up to £1m a week to help struggling charities across Merseyside, North Wales and Cheshire. It has already made more than 600 awards to charities tackling everything from food poverty, mental health, homelessness and domestic violence, and helped 1.5m people in the process.
Morgan added: “We know that the North West has some of the highest levels of social deprivation in the UK so the importance of this £20m can’t be underestimated.”
