Event Funding

Grant applications for 2025 are now OPEN. To apply for this grant, you must first register your event on the Armed Forces Day website.  A link to the grant funding application will be sent in your event confirmation email. It can take up to ten working days for an event to be approved and your confirmation email to be sent. If you have any problems completing your application please email the AFD team at: armedforcesday-events@mod.gov.uk

The Ministry of Defence makes grants available to support Armed Forces Day events. Depending on the size and format of the event, this could be up to the value of £10,000.  The grant is match-funded. This means, a Ministry of Defence grant could cover up to half of the overall cost of the event, subject to meeting the eligibility criteria.  If the overall event cost £7,000 Defence could cover up to £3,500 providing eligibility criteria are met.

Ministry of Defence funding cannot be used to pay for:

• • Hospitality, including food, drinks and accommodation
  • military assets; including displays, equipment or military vehicles
  • entertainment; such as bands, singers or musicians, films or other entertainment military or otherwise
  • transport for guests or organisers to or from the event
  • VAT

Ministry of Defence funding can be used to pay for:

• •  road closures required to hold an event, including to allow for parades and marches.
  • decorations, flags and banners (where possible please consider use of sustainable  options and avoid using single-use plastics)
  • local or national newspapers/social media/radio advertisements to promote the event
  • marshalling, security and first aid arrangements for the event
  • insurance
  • PA and communications systems such as hand-held radios or other forms of communication for event organiser

More information

It can take up to ten working days for an event to be approved and your confirmation email to be sent. If you have not received your email after ten working days, please email the team.

You can check the status of your application at any time using the link in your email.

Keep a record of the postcode you use to register the event. You must use this postcode to log into the grant page, otherwise our security measures will prevent you from checking the status of your application.

Criteria for grants

• The event must be held within 2 weeks of the Armed Forces Day, which falls on 28 June 2025.
• Have ‘Armed Forces’ in the event title
• Are relevant to today’s serving Armed Forces (and in your application, please indicate how your event is relevant)
• Have free access to members of the ‘Armed Forces Family’ – Serving personnel, Veterans, Cadets and their Families (though charges may be made for parking, programmes etc..). You will need to explain how the event provides an opportunity to ‘thank’ the Armed Forces Family
• Are not centred around Fundraising or Recruitment
• Advice on what your event could look like can be found here.

Grant making

• Each application for a grant will be judged on its own merit and alignment to the principles of the AFD (and the eligibility criteria). It will also be judged as part of a national portfolio of events to ensure that as much of the UK is able to benefit from the grants.
• Our intention is to support our event organisers provide a suitable and fitting event that thanks our Armed Forces Community.

Eligibility

• Eligibility is based on a series of questions that you or your organisation must meet to in order to secure funding.
• Feedback on previous years has largely focused around the time taken to make the grants after the event. If you are awarded a grant, please can you make sure that you provide all the necessary documentation to help speed up the process. We aim to make all the grant payments no later than three months after the required supporting documentation (invoices, covering letter) is received. . Please ensure your claims are in line with eligibility criteria and have the VAT removed.
• In addition to the receipts (and other documentation) a condition of the grant is that you MUST provide a photograph of your event. We will not publish this photo unless we have your permission, but this is to ensure that the event matches the description of the event provided. Your grant will not be paid without a photograph.

Guidance and resources

• There is information on how to host a ‘thank you’ event on our website, and the logos that you can use to promote the event.

Application

• We keep our application form as simple as we can. However, we are a very small team, so we ask that you provide as much information as you can in each section.

Assessment

• As with all public money, we must ensure that we apply a fair and equitable assessment process. Every eligible application we receive is assessed by our team to give each application an equal chance of receiving funding. We use our Armed Forces Day funding criteriawhen we assess applications. This process may involve seeking further information from organisations where needed and presenting them in a standard format for decision making.

Moderation

• To ensure our assessment process is fair and transparent, we undertake moderation of the reports created and check for a balance across the portfolio of applications.

Decision making

• The team makes the decision on what to support, and we appoint a Senior individual (SCS1 or Military equivalent) to act as an independent assessor who can review the decisions made. Their decision is final.

Feedback for grant applicants

• We endeavour to provide useful and constructive feedback to as many organisations as we can, as well as a copy of their assessment report for transparency.

How to apply for an Armed Forces Day grant

If you are interested in applying for a grant, below is a guide to direct you through the
process.

• Click on the link in your confirmation email.
  The link to apply for a grant will be included in the email you receive confirming your
  event is live on the website. The first step is to click on that link and it will take you
  through to the grant application page.

 

• Click on the LEFT HAND blue box.
  Once you’ve clicked on the link, you will be taken to a page with two blue boxes. The
  One on the Left will be “First time applying for a grant this year? Click here to
  register.” The one on the right will say “Returning to manage an existing
  application? Click here to sign in.” If you have not applied for a grant this year, click
  the left-hand box. Even if you applied last year, you still need the left-hand box.

 

• Confirm your details
  You will be asked to confirm certain details including the post code of your event.
  Please note that your link is specific to your postcode, so you must use the original
  postcode you registered your event with.

 

• Start the application
  Once you have confirmed your details, you can then start answering the questions
  on the application form. Include information about any regiments, squadrons or
  units in attendance, vehicles, equipment, military displays, cadet units and any other
  events or displays going on at Armed Forces Day. Please take special care in
  explaining the organisational structure of your event. This is your chance to sell your
  event so include as much relevant information as you can; your event could be
  fantastic however it won’t qualify for much funding if there is nothing for the Armed
  Forces Day Team to vet!

 

• Submit your application
  Once you are satisfied that you have answered questions as fully as possible, submit
  your application. This will then come through to the Armed Forces Day Grants Team
  who will vet your application and based on the strength of your application a grant
  amount will be offered.

Points to Note

If you have registered your event and not received your confirmation email, please be patient. It can take some time for an event to be approved. You should however receive an automated email confirming the registration process was successful.  If it is taking longer than usual or you believe the email may not have been sent, please contact the Armed Forces Day team and they will assist you.

You must use the postcode you originally registered the event with to log in to the grant page. Because the link is generated using your postcode, using a different postcode will cause the security measures to activate and it will prevent you from going any further with the grant application.

You can check on the status of your application using the original grant application link you received and clicking this time on the right-hand box as you are returning to manage an existing application. The various stages are all published automatically so it will be up to date and in real time.

Grant applications cannot be changed once they’ve been submitted. Please therefore make absolutely certain you are happy with your submission before you click submit as the strength of this application is the only thing that will be used to allocate funding.

You will need to provide invoices for all costs being covered by an Armed Forces Day grant. Please note VAT cannot be funded so please make sure your invoices show the figure pre-VAT. A guide to submitting invoices can be be found here.

Prior to forwarding invoices to the Armed Forces Day Team you will require a DUNS number. This can be acquired via the following link: Dun & Bradstreet – Accelerate Growth and Improve Business Performance (dnb.com)

By accepting the grant, you are agreeing to the MOD grant process. If you have any questions, then please contact the Armed Forces Day Team.

Grant Terms and Conditions

Grant Terms and Conditions will be sent alongside a confirmation email of a grant being accepted. The Grant Agreement Letter needs to be signed alongside appropriate annexes. Once completed please send a scanned copy of the grant agreement to ARMEDFORCESDAY-Events@mod.gov.uk