An ethical approach
We know that applying for funding can be complex.
We’ve designed our grant making process to be fair and ethical so that you have a realistic understanding of your project’s likelihood of funding; what you can expect from us and what we expect from our grant partners.
We work with grant partners and the people you support on the design of all of our programmes, and you can find out more about this in our strategy.
Everyone involved in our grant making process is highly experienced with an excellent understanding of the voluntary sector, the forces community and the current needs and gaps in provision. We ensure the funding we award focuses on outcomes and value for money.
While we judge every application on its own merit, it is also judged as part of the Covenant Fund’s national portfolio of funded projects to ensure a good balance of provision in support of the armed forces community.
How we keep things fair and ethical
Eligibility
We can have different eligibility rules on different programmes; depending on the aim of the programmes and the changes it is seeking to make.
We put information on eligibility on the dedicated programme page for each programme; and in the programme guidance.
We also have an eligibility checker on our website for information. Our basic eligibility checker features a series of questions designed to find out if your organisation (as opposed to your project) is eligible to apply for funding from the Trust. It covers general rules of funding such as: how long an organisation must have existed, rules on retrospective funding, who are the main beneficiaries of the organisation and what type of organisation you are.
Guidance and resources
Each funding programme has its own in-depth guidance document. While these documents can be long, the detail they give is extremely important. It gives you all the information you need to complete and submit your best application. We assess all applications against the information in the guidance document.
Application
We keep our application form as simple as we can. What’s more, for more complex funding programmes, we sometimes use a two-step application process where organisations first submit a short expression of interest before progressing to full application. This allows us to filter out any proposals that are clearly not eligible and saves you time.
Assessment
We have a rigorous assessment process. Every eligible application we receive is assessed by our expert team to give each organisation an equal chance of receiving funding. We use our programme guidance when 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 strong balance across the portfolio of applications. These robust checks and balances mean applicants can be confident of a fair assessment no matter who handles their application.
Decision making
Our Board of Trustees is an expert panel of decision makers which considers all applications and awards funding based on a national picture of need, project type and funding available. We have representation from the Devolved Administrations as well as military subject matter experts.
Feedback for unsucessful 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. Sometimes, applicants may have the chance to strengthen their application and reapply to a later round– or there may be an opportunity to apply to another of our funding programmes. Where this is the case, we will let them know.