A Liverpool businessman is set to give away £20m to help North West charities struggling with the impact of coronavirus.
Steve Morgan has already given out £50m in grants and committed another £250m since launching the Steve Morgan Foundation in 2001 but warned that the charity sector faced an unprecedented challenge because of the pandemic.
Mr Morgan is match-funding a £10m award from Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and said the new £20m fund will help hundreds of charities stay open.
The dad-of-six said: "I’m honoured that the work of the Steve Morgan Foundation has been recognised by the Government with this award of £10m and, by match-funding it, we have £20m to get out to those charities in the most need."
Mr Morgan, who is the founder of housebuilder Redrow, said the money from the Community Match Challenge Fund will be split between around 100 smaller North West-based charities and four larger charities which are Maggie’s, JDRF, Onside Youth Zones and The Reader.
JDRF is the world’s leading type 1 diabetes research charity and since Covid-19 has seen its annual income drop by over £2m in the UK.
Karen Addington, JDRF’s UK chief executive said: “We will continue to face financial uncertainty in the months ahead but this grant will help provide resilience, preserving the momentum on our mission to cure type 1 diabetes and support those affected by it."
Maggie’s is almost exclusively reliant on voluntary donations and chief executive Laura Lee said: “We are incredibly grateful for this funding as it means we can make sure as many people as possible living with cancer across England will get the crucial emotional and psychological support they need at this time.”
Mr Morgan, 67, explained how the £20m would be allocated.
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He said: "It’s two-fold, part of the funding will provide support for around 100 North West-based charities and community organisations with annual income of £5 million 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.”
In March Mr Morgan launched a Covid-19 Emergency Fund, where he gave away £1m a week to help struggling charities in Merseyside, North Wales and Cheshire.
The Covid-19 Emergency Fund has made over 600 awards to charities tackling everything from food poverty, mental health, homelessness, domestic violence, bereavement and social isolation and helped 1.5m people in the process.
