Response Fund

Your support has never been more needed!

Please watch, share and donate if you are able – to help us meet the £931,000 of unmet need our depleted Surrey Coronavirus Response Fund leaves us currently unable to support. It is vital we come together to support vulnerable local residents through the next stage of the pandemic.

For further information and how to donate, please click here!

What we are hearing from charities

Voluntary organisations across Surrey have adapted quickly and efficiently to continue supporting our vulnerable local residents, but many are now at a crisis point due to pressures brought on by the pandemic, including severe financial loss and the surge in demand for their services.

A recent report released by the National Emergencies Trust (NET) states that 1 in 8 people living in the UK expect to seek support from a charity or voluntary body in the next 12 months, as a direct result of challenges created by Covid-19. For more than half (61%) of these people, it will be the first time they have ever sought charitable support.

We have been working closely together with organisations across the county, to identify crucial areas where funding support from our community is most needed. Key issues and concerns include:

• Significant loss of income from all sources
• Significantly increased demand for services
• Lack of resilience in their organisations due to staff and services being stripped to minimal essential levels
• The human cost of the pandemic
• The long-term effects on communities – for years to come

Organisations are also increasingly having to deal with severe issues and worsening of conditions amongst their existing beneficiaries.

One local organisation that supports people with physical, mental and learning disabilities informed us: “Many of our customers have challenging behaviours and thrive on routine, and the uncertainty and restrictions have had a negative impact on them. Similarly, we support many people with acute mental health and anxiety issues, and the isolation and uncertainty has triggered a worsening of symptoms. There has been an increase in incidents of challenging behaviour and mental health crisis over the last two months”.

As the Coronavirus pandemic develops, we are regularly receiving more feedback from charities about the impact the virus and restrictions are having upon groups of beneficiaries.

Further findings can be found on the Data and Insights pages below.

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