Coronavirus Community Support Fund Impact Report

The Coronavirus Community Support Fund (CCSF) had two main objectives at the outset, which it achieved:

1. CCSF increased community support to vulnerable people affected by the pandemic:

• Grantholders successfully reached people and communities disproportionately affected.
  
• Most organisations would have delivered fewer services without CCSF.

2. CCSF also reduced temporary closures of essential charities and social enterprises:

• CCSF helped ensure organisations had the financial resources to continue operating and providing support to their communities.
• The evidence on the impact on public services was less clear with grantholder activities both reducing and increasing this demand in the short term.

The CCSF impact report summarises the findings from research conducted between November 2020 and June 2021 about the impact the CCSF had on the people and communities that were supported, the organisations that were funded, and the volunteers involved.

This includes findings from surveys of 6,712 grantholders and 9,466 volunteers. In addition, over 260 grantholders were interviewed to understand the impact of the funding on their organisations, beneficiaries and volunteers, and their stories and experiences have contributed to the report.

Our grantholders reported a wide range of positive outcomes for beneficiaries as a result of the support delivered through the CCSF:

• Nearly all (95%) said their beneficiaries had experienced more than one positive outcome.
• 86% reported that people’s mental health and wellbeing improved.
• 79% reported that people felt less lonely.
• 70% reported people had more social contact.

To find out more about the exciting findings read the full Impact Evaluation of the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, and the accompanying annexes.

A series of spotlight papers take an in depth look at themes from this evaluation:

• Spotlight Findings Paper 1: Lasting impacts and legacy for CCSF grantholders.
• Spotlight Findings Paper 2: Experiences of volunteers during the pandemic.
• Spotlight Findings Paper 3: Meeting the short-term basic needs of beneficiaries.
  
• Spotlight Findings Paper 4: Beneficiary experiences during the pandemic.
  
• Spotlight Findings Paper 5: Lessons from adapting during emergency circumstances.
• Spotlight Findings Paper 6: Patterns in the support delivered, the people reached and the outcomes achieved.

You can also read case studies from 21 organisations who received CCSF funding on our Coronavirus Community Support Fund Showcase page.

This page was last updated: 08 October 2021.