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Bank and building society accounts that have not been touched for 15 years will see their money ‘unlocked’ to help charities, social enterprises and vulnerable individuals during the coronavirus/COVID-19 crisis.

The £150 million in funding will support urgent work to tackle youth unemployment, expand access to emergency loans for civil society organisations and help improve the availability of fair, affordable credit to people in vulnerable circumstances.

The money will be used as follows:

• £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. They will be launching an Emergency Levelling Up Youth Fund to support young people from hardest hit communities; and will expand their Development and Impact grants programme to rapidly increase youth employment provisions.
• £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.
• £65 million will be used by Fair4All Finance 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. This includes an expanded Affordable Credit Scale-up Programme and other initiatives for those in financially vulnerable circumstances.
• £30 million will go to Access - The Foundation for Social Investment to 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. Both initiatives will work alongside Big Society Capital and other social lenders and will enable a wider range of organisations to access affordable and flexible finance.

In addition to this funding, the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund, will open for applications on Friday, 22 May. It is expected that this funding will reach frontline organisations within a few weeks.

The Government's full announcement can be read on Gov.UK website

22.05.20