# COVID-19: Martin Lewis offers £1 million fund for small and local charities

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2020/03/19/covid-19-martin-lewis-offers-1m-fund-for-small-and-local-charities/
- Published: 2020-03-19T14:33:45+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Martin Lewis (the Money Saving Expert) has launched a £1 million fund to provide
grants to small and local charities who are directly helping with the COVID-19 response.**

The money is from his own personal [charity fund](https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2019/01/martin-lewis--what-happened-to-my-pledge-to-give-p10m-to-charity/).

His fund is offering grants of **£5,000 to £20,000** to small registered charities,
or local arms of bigger charities, across the UK who are directly helping with the
COVID-19 response in terms of poverty relief.

## Advertisement

Likely recipients will include:

 * foodbanks
 * charities engaged in community aid
 * financial advice projects, and more.

 
⌊Newspaper headlines in Colchester about COVID19 affecting foodbanks and schools⌉
Lewis said “My hope is to get the money distributed within the next couple of weeks,
and I’m looking for projects that are up and running, or are in the process of being
set up – as we want to deliver help at speed.” 

The deadline for applications is appropriately urgent: it is less than a week away**
on 25 March**.

Fortunately the application process is very simple and does not require lots of 
information.

Lewis added: “Please ONLY apply for funds for specific coronavirus projects; there’s
no point chancing your arm for other charity projects, no matter how good, it will
just slow us down in making grants where needed.”

Details, including the application form, are on [Money Saving Expert](https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2020/03/i-m-making-p1m-available-to-fund-urgent-small-charity-coronaviru/).

## Matched giving from major donors

Lewis has also publicly invited other individuals or organisations to contribute
matched gifts of “min £10,000 pls, max £100bn – well, I can hope”).

He explained: “That isn’t for a second to snub donations that are smaller than that,
charities really do need them, but we don’t have the infrastructure to deal with
them, so please do give directly to the charities yourself.”

He is also aware of the a [National Emergencies Trust coronavirus appeal](https://fundraising.co.uk/2020/03/19/national-emergencies-trust-launches-coronavirus-appeal/),
announced by Prince William yesterday, but thinks the two appeals have different
approaches so is maintaining his fund, not least because it gives eligible charities
a second bite at the cherry.

 * **[Martin Lewis charity fund update February 2026](https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2026/02/martin-lewis-charity-fund-update/)(
   MoneySavingExpert)