Grant Guidelines
These general guidelines apply to all Finstock Foundation calls. Each call for applications sets out its own purpose, eligibility criteria, value, deadlines, required documents, selection criteria and reporting requirements — always read the individual call carefully.
Types of support
Not every programme provides cash. Each call states which type of support it offers:
- Financial grant
- Funds transferred to a recipient for an agreed purpose and budget.
- In-kind grant
- Goods, services or technology provided directly instead of cash — for example equipment, platform set-up or digitisation services.
- Capacity-building grant
- Training, mentoring and professional development for individuals or institutional teams.
- Scholarship
- Support towards a learner’s study costs.
- Fellowship
- Time-bound support for an individual’s professional or research development.
- Research grant
- Support for a defined research project.
- Institutional grant
- Support to an institution to strengthen its systems or services.
- Innovation grant
- Early-stage support to develop and test a new solution.
- Partnership programme
- A jointly designed programme delivered with one or more partners.
- Technical assistance
- Expert advice and hands-on implementation support.
Principles
- Fair and transparent. Eligibility and selection criteria are published with each call and applied consistently.
- Human decisions. Applications are assessed by qualified reviewers, and funding decisions are made by an authorised committee or officer. Software and AI tools may help check completeness or summarise information, but they never decide who is funded.
- Conflicts of interest. Reviewers and decision-makers must declare any potential or actual conflict of interest and are excluded from applications where a conflict exists. No one may review or approve their own application or one from an organisation they are connected to.
- Due diligence. Before an award is made, the Foundation may verify information provided by applicants — such as identity, registration, governance and references — proportionate to the size and type of support.
- Accountability. Recipients agree to use support for its intended purpose, to report on progress and results, and to allow reasonable monitoring.
- Privacy. Application information is handled confidentially and used only to assess and manage applications, as described in our Privacy Notice.
- No fees. The Foundation does not charge applicants any fee to apply. Be cautious of anyone asking for payment in the Foundation’s name.
How applications are assessed
Most calls follow these stages: eligibility screening, compliance review, technical review and scoring against published criteria, due diligence, committee decision and award. Some calls, particularly smaller or in-kind programmes, use a shorter process. The process for each call is stated in the call itself.
These general guidelines will be supplemented by the Foundation’s Grant Management Policy, which will be published in the Transparency section once approved.