Armed Forces Families Fund: Early Years Programme 2025-26

Background

Under this programme, Armed Forces Covenant Trust is awarding grants on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MOD)'s Armed Forces Families Fund.

Objectives of Fund

The funding is intended to help Armed Forces families access good quality early childhood education and childcare provision that is located close to where they are living or serving.

Value Notes

Grants of £5,000 to £80,000 are available for a standalone project being delivered over a period of up to two years

Who Can Apply

Applications will be accepted from:

• An early childhood education and childcare provider operating where armed forces families live or work. The setting must offer group-based childcare and have 50% service children (unless applying as a cluster) on roll as a minimum. They must be registered with, and inspected by, one of the following:
  • Ofsted (England),
  • Care Inspectorate (Scotland),
  • Care Inspectorate (Wales)
  • Early Years Teams within Health and Social Care Trusts (Northern Ireland)
• A local authority.

To be eligible, applicants must:

• Be based in the UK.
• Be a registered charity, a CIC, or a company limited by guarantee or a local authority in one of the four countries of the UK.

There are four ways to apply to this programme:

• Settings with less than 50% service children on roll applying as a cluster.
• Settings with more than 50% service children on roll applying as a cluster.
• Settings with more than 50% service children on roll applied as a single setting.
• As a local authority.

Location

UK

Restrictions

The following are not eligible for funding:

• Childminders.
• Existing staff posts. If staffing costs are included the applicant must be able to evidence that this is a new activity to benefit Service children, e.g. a part time person goes to full time whilst they grow their numbers to sustain additional wages.
• Projects not benefiting people from the Armed Forces community.
• Large scale refurbishments, changes to infrastructure or projects that would be classed as having capital costs.
• Projects that do not clearly meet the aims of the programme.
• Projects that are not targeted to the young children from Armed Forces families, or that provide benefits to ineligible beneficiaries that are more than incidental.
• Where money only benefits one person.
• Making grants or donations of money or items of value to individuals or families.
• Repeat or regular projects that require a source of uncommitted funding.
• Endowments (to provide a source of income).
• Topping up existing grants and aid from a government department.
• Investments.
• Fundraising costs, including organising fundraising events and activities.
• Paying for ongoing costs of existing partnership activity.
• Projects, activities or services that the state has a legal obligation to provide.
• Retrospective funding for projects that have already started or taken place.
• Excessive management or professional fees or contingency costs.
• Purchasing or leasing of vehicles.
• Purchase of any live animals or insects, for example worms for a wormer

Eligible Expenditure

The funder is looking for projects that can deliver sustainable change. Applicants will need to demonstrate evidence to support the approach that they seek to take, and how people from Armed Forces communities have helped to shape this.

Projects must clearly benefit Armed Forces families with a child under 5 years of age by enhancing their access to high quality childcare.

To be eligible in 2025-26, projects need to contribute to at least one of the following four outcomes:

• Increased capacity at the setting to allow more Service children to attend.
• Better learning environments for Service children.
• Have provided appropriate training and development to staff to support Service children.
• Establishing collaborative networks and shared resources through clusters to address the needs of service children.

Grants may be used to cover:

• Temporary uplift in staff hours (in line with current legislation) to support more Service children being able to access the setting.
• Training opportunities for staff.
• Temporary use of agency staff or uplift from part time to full time to enable permanent staff training opportunities that benefit the Service children.
• Staff time for this fixed-term project. This could be direct project work or for admin or to manage volunteers that may be involved in the project.
• Sessional staff or freelancers that may be needed to run the project and activity.
• Reasonable travel costs including fares or mileage for project staff and volunteers to enable participation in the project (this would not include the costs for Service children to attend the Early Years setting).
• Purchasing items that can enable activities to take place.
• Reasonable overheads, which reflect the cost to the organisation of delivering this project, taking account of recent cost increases

How To Apply

There are two application rounds in 2025.

The deadlines for applications are 12 noon on:

• 4 June 2025 for a decision before the end of August 2025.
• 8 October 2025 for a decision before the end of December 2025.

The programme guidance, FAQs and the online application form can be found on the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust website.

A free Early Years Lunch and Learn webinar will be held on 17 March 2025 (12:00 to 13:00). Registration is via the Trust’s website.

Contact Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust for more information.