LFC Foundation secures £2.6m to expand across Liverpool City Region

The funding will enable the Reds’ official charity to reach more children and young people in high-need communities and focus on key services to help support the city’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

It will also support the establishment of six new LFC Foundation Community Wellbeing Hubs, all of which will be based at existing community venues operated by partner community organisations in Anfield, Kirkby, Toxteth, Bootle, Birkenhead and Speke by the end of January 2021.

The hubs will provide a wide range of LFC Foundation community programmes and services with a broad offering to children, young people and their families.

The hubs will also help to break down barriers that some members of the community experience accessing programmes, such as proximity and the cost of travel. 

LFC Foundation will expand its successful Premier League programme, Kicks, and employability provision, Works, as well as its inclusion and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) school programmes, which will provide a range of free and inclusive sessions to more than 4,000 participants. The expansion also allows the Foundation to deliver specialist inclusion sports sessions in every SEND school across Merseyside.

Matt Parish, director of LFC Foundation, said: “To receive this level of support from both the Steve Morgan Foundation and the DCMS is amazing. This will enable us to deliver more programmes in the heart of communities across the Liverpool City Region. The Steve Morgan Foundation is already one of the biggest providers of grant funding to community groups and charities in the region and this round of funding will take that up to an even greater level. 

“This funding will not only be directly supporting thousands of young people and their families through delivery of our programmes but also a minimum of six community-based venues who in turn support many more people in the communities in which they are based.”

The funding is part of the government’s £750m package for the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector and its Community Match Challenge, which invites philanthropists, foundations and grant-making organisations to put forward new funding with a generous offer to match funds raised on a pound-for-pound basis.

Debbie Wright, chief executive, Tiber Football Centre, said: “We are delighted that LFC Foundation are able to provide additional support and deliver more of their programmes at the Tiber. We want to ensure our local community have opportunities right on their doorstep.”

Steve Morgan, founder and chairman of the Steve Morgan Foundation, said: “The Foundation is proud to have been awarded £10 million of government funding, which the Foundation is matching pound for pound to support charities and not-for-profit organisations to continue delivering essential services in the face of the pandemic.

“Our team is working flat out to ensure that we target those organisations working at grassroots level in the heart of our communities.”

Minister for Civil Society, Baroness Barran, said: “Liverpool FC and its Foundation give so much back to the local community and it’s a privilege to support their work with vulnerable children and families.

“I’m delighted that through our partnership with the Steve Morgan Foundation, part of the £750 million support package we have delivered for charities can help make a difference in Liverpool.”