The Community Resilience Fund (CRF) was launched by GambleAware in 2022. The CRF funded community-based organizations in the United Kingdom to support addressing gambling harms among disadvantaged and marginalized groups. GambleAware commissioned Ipsos to evaluate the CRF, which ran for three years between January 2023 and January 2026. The evaluation found that the CRF led to increased awareness of gambling harms, improved staff knowledge, and helped reach underserved groups who might not engage with traditional services. These approaches worked best when gambling harms were integrated into existing services and addressed alongside socioeconomic and mental health concerns like debt, trauma, and housing. However, stigma, low awareness, and system-level barriers were challenges for uptake of formal support.
The findings of this evaluation suggest that funding community-based organizations to address gambling harms among underserved groups is valuable. They also show that the impact depends on the availability of long-term funding, trust building in communities, and stronger coordination and collaboration across services.
