Campaign By Steve Morgan Helps One Million People

A campaign by philanthropist and businessman Steve Morgan to help charities affected by Covid-19 has now helped over one million people.

The founder of the Steve Morgan Foundation (stevemorganfoundation.org.uk) announced in March he would be giving up to £1m a week to charities in North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire faced with a cashflow crisis as a result of Covid-19.

In the first eight weeks the Covid-19 Emergency Fund has made more than 400 awards to frontline charities helping over one million people.

Over £4m of the £5m committed to date has been paid out. This sum includes a £1m match-fund campaign by Cheshire Community Foundation to support charities helping vulnerable people affected by the pandemic.

The founder of housebuilder Redrow and former owner of Wolverhampton Wanderers is also locked in talks to fund a significant £3m Covid-19 medical trial that he can’t currently talk about.

Morgan said he was “stunned” at reaching the one million people milestone but insisted the work was far from over.

“I’m speechless that we’ve been able to help one million people in just eight weeks but I think it highlights the size of the need out there,” he said.

“We are working with some fantastic partner charities who are able to make sure that the right help gets to the right people at the right time.

“Had we done nothing my concern was the most vulnerable people in society would have suffered the biggest hardship.”

The one million people helped have faced a wide range of problems including homelessness, food poverty, mental health, social isolation and bereavement.

Awards have varied from a few hundred pounds to £150,000 but Morgan said the key has been turning the applications around quickly.

“A lot of the charities would have closed if they’d had to wait six months for funding so we paid the money into the accounts in a couple of days. Over the course of the first seven weeks we’ve seen the number of applications reduce from 165 in week one to just 34 last week but that’s to be expected.”

Morgan said the Foundation was carrying out an ongoing review of its Covid-19 campaign before deciding what to do next.

“It’s a such a fluid situation and it’s changing all the time,” he said. “This is the first phase. One thing I’m concerned about is people’s mental health and what the impact of Covid-19 and a sustained period of isolation will be.”