In 2020 Hospitality Action spent £1.36m and awarded 4,698 grants, compared with £733,000 on 2,282 grants in 2019. So far in 2021 Hospitality Action has given £300,000 in grants to over 1,000 beneficiaries. Around 95% of the grants expenditure was to help with poverty alleviation due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mark Lewis, chief executive of Hospitality Action, commented: “Hospitality Action receives no government funding. And, due to ongoing social distancing regulations, we still remain unable to plan many fundraising events which have traditionally been the backbone of our fundraising programme. We need to raise every penny we spend on grant-giving ourselves.
“I’m immensely proud of my team and the fantastic industry whose generosity and trust gave us the platform to achieve what we have in the last year.
“I sincerely hope we’re past the worst the pandemic can throw at us and we’re as excited as you are to see the industry re-open. But one thing is crystal clear to me, for as long as you’ll keep supporting us, we’ll keep helping hospitality people impacted by Covid-19 or whatever as yet unknown, curveballs life has in store for them.”
Hospitality Action fundraising campaigns included Invisible Chips and the 20,000 Mile Hospitality Challenge, which aimed to raise money for vulnerable people. To read the Hospitality Action Impact Report, visit here.