International Communities programme
Stage one application form and guide /

Welcome to International Communities

This application form and guide is for organisations across the UK that want to apply for a grant from the International Communities programme.

The guidance will help you understand the application process and give you key information about the programme. Before you start filling in the form, you should read this guidance carefully and also read our International Communities questions and answers at

Contacting us

If you have questions about how to apply please visit the International Communities pages of our website, which has questions and answers about the programme. You can also contact us on:

Telephone: 0845 4 10 20 30

Email:

If you have a hearing impairment you can contact us using a text phone on 0845 6 02 16 59.

We can supply this publication in other formats, such as large print or audiotape. We will also try to help with other communication needs, such as sign language or a community language, Braille and Welsh. Just let us know how we can help you when you contact us.

Submitting your application

You cansend us a stage one application form at any time before the 31 March 2014.

Post your application to:

International Communities – Stage one

Big Lottery Fund

Apex House

3 Embassy Drive

Edgbaston

Birmingham

B15 1TR

or email your application to:

If you email your application, please put the name of your organisation in the subject field of your email. You must also post all of Section 4: Finishing your application form to usas we need original signatures. This includes the checklist and beneficiary monitoring section.

Please allow 10 working days for us to acknowledge that we have received your application.

Big Lottery Fund, December 2012

Contents

International Communities at a glance / 3
Part one: About International Communities / 4
What we will fund / 4
What we will not fund / 4
International Communities programme outcomes / 4
International Communities cross-cutting themes / 6
How much will we fund? / 6
Development funding / 7
Part two: Applying for funding to International Communities / 8
Applying for existing projects / 8
What happens at stage one? / 8
What happens if you are invited to stage two? / 8
What happens if we award you a grant? / 9
Part three: International Communities application form / 11
Appendix A: More about cross-cutting themes / 37
Appendix B: What will we pay for? / 38
Appendix C: Property declaration / 40
Appendix D: Business plan requirements / 41
Appendix E: Standard terms and conditions of grant / 42
Appendix F: Guidance for partnerships / 50

About the Big Lottery Fund

The Big Lottery Fund distributes up to half of the money that the National Lottery raises for good causes. Our mission is to bring realimprovements to communities and the lives of people most in need. We want Lottery money to be used to make big changes for communities through the fair and open funding of people, projects and programmes, with a particular emphasis on tackling need for those most disadvantaged.

International Communities is just one of our grants programmes. If you are a UK-based organisation seeking funds for other projects in the UK, you can find out about our other programmes by visiting or you can telephone the Big Advice Line on 0845 4 10 20 30 (or textphone 0845 602 1659 for those with a hearing impairment).

There are other organisations that give Lottery grants as well as the Big Lottery Fund. You can find out about these by visiting or you can telephone the Lottery Funding helpline on 0845 275 0000 (textphone 0845 275 0022).

International Communities at a glance

International Communitiesfunds projects that tackle the causes of poverty and deprivation and bring about a long-term difference to the lives of some of the most disadvantaged people in the world.

The application process for International Communitiesis open and competitive and will involvetwo stages. This application form and guide is for stage one, at which point we will expect your project to be well researched and planned. If you are invited to stage two, you will be expected to submit a detailed business plan with fully developed and accurate final costs.

We have produced this checklist to help you decide whether to apply: / Yes / No
  1. Are you a UK-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) or voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisation?

  1. Will you work with at least one independent overseas partner organisation or group to run your project?

  1. Will your project be working in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, the Caribbean or Eastern Europe?

  1. Will your project focus on improving the primary education, health, use of natural resources, human rights, or livelihoods of the most disadvantaged people?

  1. Will your project actively involve the people who are intended to benefit; helping them to influence their future, build their capacity to improve their lives and work with others to achieve common goals?

  1. Do you need between £50,000 and £500,000 from BIG, including no more than £50,000 for capital expenditure including VAT?

  1. Will your project last from two to five years?

If you can answer yes to all these questions then International Communities may be the right programme for you. To find out more, read the guidance and application form in full.

If you cannot confidently answer yes to all of these questions then your project does not meet our basic requirements for funding and you will not be considered for a grant from this programme.

We receive many more good applications to this programme than we are able to fund, and this means that even with a good project proposal you may not be invited to stage two. We advise you to always look for other sources of funding for projects and to be cautious about raising people’sexpectations before you have been offered a grant. For further general information and advice on other sources of funding, applicable to a wide range of organisations, you can go to the following websites:

  • British Overseas NGOs for Development -
  • Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland –
  • Directory of Social Change –
  • National Council for Voluntary Organisations -

We regularly review our funding programmes in response to feedback from our customers and changing funding needs. This may mean changes to elements of our assessment, procedures, decision-making policies or priorities. Any such changes will be communicated through the programme pages on our website

Please read these guidance notes in conjunction with the questions and answers document available on our website

Part one: About International Communities

International Communities makes grants to projects that tackle the causes of poverty and deprivation and bring about a long-term difference to the lives of some of the most disadvantaged people in the world. The programme will make grants of between £50,000 and £500,000 for projects lasting from two to five years.

The programme budget for 2010 – 2015 will be up to £80 million. The programme will be open to applications until 31 March 2014, with final grants awarded by 31 March 2015. This deadline is a year before the programme closes as it can take up to 18 months to work together; to ensure your project is robust; to offer development support where required; and to give it the best chance of success.

What we will fund

International Communities will only fund UK-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations that are working with local partners overseas to run the project. By voluntary and community sector we mean registered charities, charitable or not-for-profit organisations and organisations set up as social enterprises (businesses where any profits are mainly re-invested for community benefit).

We will only fund projects in the following regions:

  • Africa
  • Asia (including the Pacific and Central Asian countries) and the Middle East
  • Central and South America
  • the Caribbean
  • Eastern Europe andthe Balkans (including the Russian Federation and the Caucasus)

We will not fund projects in European Union member countries and acceding countries.

You can apply for projects based in European Union candidate countries (Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Turkey) and potential candidate countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo) in the regions stated above according to the membership status of the country on the date you submit your application.

What we will not fund

  • While we welcome applications from religious organisations, we do not fund activities that promote religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs.
  • We will not fund needs analysisfor projects, as this should already have been carried out before a stage one application is submitted.
  • We will not fund projects which include beneficiaries from the UK.
  • We do not make grants to organisations that are working with overseas branches that are not wholly independent of the UK branch unless you are working with another independent local partner to run the project.
  • Under this programme we will not fund individuals, sole traders, statutory organisations, profit-making organisations or organisations that are applying on behalf of another.
  • We will not fund general business investment schemes offering loans, or general business and employment services,where these do not form part of a project that is responding to a clearly defined need in a disadvantaged community.
  • We will not fund organisations in poor financial health.

International Communities programme outcomes

We want our grants to make a difference.

We will ask you to describe the difference or key changes your project will make. We call these changes ‘outcomes’.Please note that these changes must occur within the durationof your project as we expect you to be able to demonstrate the specific, measurable changes to beneficiaries which have been brought about as a direct result of our funding.

Below we list the five outcomes that we want International Communities to achieve. Your project must meet one or more of these programme outcomes for your application to have a chance of being successful. Please refer to the questions and answers document on our website further information relating to the programme outcomes.

1.Improved primary education for the most disadvantaged boys and girls.

2.Improved health for the most disadvantaged people

Under this outcome we will only fund projects focusing on:

  • improved mother and child health
  • improved reproductive health
  • improved measures to prevent HIV/AIDS and mitigate its impact
  • improved measures to prevent and control major local diseases
  • improved mental healthwhere thefocus is on functional mental illness (the programme will not fund organic degenerative conditions, such as dementia).

3.Improved access to and use of natural resources to benefit the most disadvantaged people

Priority will be given to projects that focus upon:

  • improved access to safe water and sanitation
  • more sustainable use of land.

To be considered for funding under this outcome you must demonstrate how your approach will ensure the sustainable development of the project by preparing for and responding to environmental shocks and stresses and likely climate change. This should be evident across your application.

4.Improved ability for the most disadvantaged people to exercise their human rights

Priority will be given to projects that focus upon and include both areas set out below:

  • an improved environment in which to exercise their civil and political rights
  • the enabling of human rights defenders to campaign peacefully for civil and political rights.

5.Improved livelihoods for the most disadvantaged people by enabling communities in need, both rural and urban, to reduce poverty in a sustainable way.

This outcome may include a wide range of projects, for example:

  • projects that provide better access to finance and saving schemes for individuals and groups wishing to improve their financial security or developsmall scale enterprises
  • access to training and skills in business or business areas to assist small scale entrepreneursin communities with the running or development of their businesses
  • support communities to gain better access to employment through training and support services
  • support individuals or groups of local businesses in communities withthe marketing and distribution of their products
  • advocacy and lobbying of financial institutions and government institutions to make financial and business support more accessible to disadvantaged groups and enabling a business environment that contains fewer barriers for disadvantaged communities
  • supporting existing financial lending structures in order to make these sustainable and accessible to local communities who are most disadvantaged.

This list of activities is not exhaustive andwe would expect ‘livelihood’applicationsto target communities in need with a broad and sustainable project that is based upon sound research.

If you would like to offer loans as part of your project you should note that:

  • the amount for such loansmust not be more than 20 per centof the total value of your grant (excluding any development funding)
  • you will have to demonstrate that you have sufficiently robust systems to manage the scheme
  • you will need to sign an external delegation agreement, which is an extra set of terms and conditions specifically relating to loans schemes.

International Communities cross-cutting themes

To maximise the strategic impact of our funding we expect you to demonstrate in your application form that you have appropriately considered all of the following cross-cutting themes in the design, management and implementation of your project:

  • diversity,particularly gender and disability,so that projects promote greater equality and access to services for the most marginalised beneficiaries
  • participation so that communities are actively involved in identifying need then designing and managing responses to it with an active voice in how projects develop
  • influencing opinion with a focus on advocacy, ideally at several levels from the community up to high-level public policy influencing
  • capacity building where projects consider opportunities to build the capability of people and organisations so that good practice and effective ways of working are sustained
  • building alliances, collaboration and networking with other projects and organisations to share learning within the country of operation and in the UK.

When we evaluated our previous international grant programmes we found that projects which take these issues strongly into account are more effective in meeting project and programme outcomes and activities have a better chance of being sustained in the longer-term. Please see Appendix A: International Communities cross-cutting themesfor further guidance.

How much will we fund?

We will only make grants of between £50,000 and £500,000 for projects that last between two and five years. If you are successful at stage one, we may also offer you development funding.

We can fund all or some of your project costs. Although this isn’t a requirement, we encourage you to get some of your funding from other sources if you can as this helps to show a wider range of support for your project and may help it to be more sustainable.

You can apply for both revenue and capital costs. Please see Appendix B: What will we pay for?for details of eligible and ineligible costs.

Revenue funding

We will provide revenue funding towards the operating costs of your project. The combined total of the capital and revenue funding you apply for must not be more than £500,000.

Capital funding

This programme is mainly for the revenue costs of projects, so we will only award up to £50,000 towards capital costs. This £50,000 should include all relevant costs, such as VAT.

While we can support some capital costs for small-scale building, refurbishment or items of equipment, these must not be a major element of your project.

If you are applying for a grant that includes land and buildings capital expenditure, you will need to complete our International Communities capital checklist, which you can find inAppendix C: Property declaration

Please note that if you are planning building works, we will expect projects to have proof of tenure and relevant planning permission.

Developmentfunding

There are two types of development funding available at stage one and you should carefully consider if you need either or both of these.If we offer you development funding, it will not be compulsory for you to accept it nor will it guarantee that your application will be successful at stage two.

Stage two application preparation

As part of your stage one application, you can apply for funding of up to £10,000 to contribute towards the cost of preparing your detailed business plan and stage two application form. This could include costs such as travelling to meet with partners and costs of staff or consultancy time. We will not award grants for needs analysis or early project planning, as we expect you to have done this before you send us your stage one application form. Please see Appendix D: Business plan requirementsfor further information on what we expect to see in your business plan.

Your development work must be completed and a supporting End of development grant (stage two application preparation) report submitted and approved by us before we can assess your stage two application. Please note that your stage two application must be submitted within six months of the date of your development grant offer letter.

Organisational support

We may offer some applicants, who are invited to stage two, additional funds for organisational support. This is designed to support you, the UK-based organisation, as our experience has identified some areas of project delivery that can commonly give rise to issues which affect the achievement of project outcomes. It is not intended for helping you to develop your partner organisations.

Funding can be made available for you to procure up to 10 days of support from relevant external consultants to focus on the following areas: