In June, the charity pledged £2m ($2.3m) for a new initiative, the Aftercare Funding Programme (AFP). This scheme seeks to make funds available for organisations that help people recover from gambling harms.

Specifically, the AFP is earmarked for initiatives that support individuals’ ongoing recovery post-care, or as GambleAware put it, programmes that “enable people to maintain their recovery from gambling harms.”

Applications for the AFP opened on 30 June; smaller organisations were eligible for up to £150,000 while larger organisations could receive up to £350,000.  

However, this closed on 15 August but now, GambleAware is seeking expressions of interest for “evaluation and learning partners.”

Submissions will remain open until 5pm on Friday 28 October. The actual evaluation project, meanwhile, is expected to commence in early February 2023 and be completed by 2026. A maximum budget of £300,000 is available for this work.

When GambleAware launched the AFP on 30 June, it also announced another initiative: the Community Resilience Fund (CRF).

This £1m programme was designed to provide “short-term funding” for certain organisations in the face of a cost-of-living crisis, and in particular, “the impact this has had in exacerbating gambling harms.”

Applications for this ran through 8 August and a similar call for “a learning partner” was issued on 9 September. The CRF evaluation project is expected to start in January 2023 and last for up to 18 months.