• Santander Foundation’s 34 funded partners will each receive additional funding – a total of £485,000 – to help them with increases in the cost of living.
• The funding is additional to a further £1.85m awarded to thirteen charities in 2022, supporting charities that help people become digitally and financially empowered.
The Santander Foundation will provide a £485,000 cost of living payment to its 34 charity partners, all of which are grassroots charities helping people and their communities to overcome digital and financial inequalities - including migrants and refugees, lone parents, single pensioners and those with long-term illnesses and disabilities.
The cost of living funding comes after the Foundation awarded a further £1.85m in 2022 through its Digital & Empowerment fund, which focuses on supporting charities that help enhance people’s digital and financial skills and capability.
The rising cost of living has had a significant impact on these charities. As more and more people experience acute financial hardship, charities are increasingly needing to respond to individual’s basic needs, ahead of delivering training or capacity building. Meanwhile, the charities themselves are under additional financial pressures as they face hikes in their own operational costs.
Matt York, Santander Foundation Manager, commented:
“People facing existing economic disadvantage and vulnerabilities are the most impacted by the rising cost of living. Many are being pushed into poverty, and damaging cycles of debt and ill health.
“We are acutely aware of the strain our funded partners are feeling at the moment, and we are committed to supporting them through this period. In January we offered each partner a 10% increase on their total award, which comes with no conditions or restrictions. Each organisation can use the money in the way they deem appropriate to respond to the cost of living crisis.”
Harriet Goodland, Advice Service Lead at CHAS (Bristol), a housing advice service and Santander Foundation partner, said:
“We have seen a huge increase in demand for our service over the last six months. With the support from Santander, in response to the rising cost of living, we are helping an increasing number of people access the benefits and other support they need to avoid homelessness.”
Dougie Stevenson, CEO at Street League, a youth sports charity and Santander Foundation partner, said:
“We’re finding that young people today are feeling disheartened about their future prospects, with the rising cost of essential goods and services making it even harder for them to get by resulting in a decline in confidence, mental health, and wellbeing. The additional money received from the Santander Foundation will make a significant difference to the lives of young people who are struggling to cope.”
Since its launch in 2016, the Santander Foundation has partnered with 21 charitable organisations in the UK that work to help people become digitally and financially empowered. The Foundation is committed to continually exploring ways to help alleviate poverty and empower people to prosper.
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Notes to Editors
About Santander Foundation
We are the charity of Santander UK. We’re an independent foundation regulated by the charities commission, we’re proud to hold a close and purposeful working relationship with our corporate donor, Santander UK.
Santander UK Plc donate an annual contribution to the Santander Foundation, we invest these profits by offering grants across the UK aimed at empowering people facing disadvantage and inequalities with the digital and financial capabilities to prosper.
We also match fund the donations raised by colleagues across Santander UK Plc to charities of their choice.
Over the last two years we have invested over £5m to charities across the UK through our strategic funding programme the Financial + Digital Empowerment Fund, and our matched donations programme with Santander UK staff. This funding is supporting over 78,000 people across the UK.
We’re also investing in learning; to understand how systems, practice and policies can contribute to effective change and move people closer to prosperity.