Baillie Gifford International Fund

About this fund

This fund is aimed at supporting registered charities who are working in International Aid Development to deliver their work. Grants of up to £5,000 are available for projects addressing the climate emergency outside of the UK.  

Baillie Gifford will have £67,419 available for grant distribution in 2024. Approximately 13 grants will therefore be made. Based on previous years, this fund has a success rate of 52% at the point of enquiry. 

Purpose of this fund

Primarily, the fund aims to increase participation with climate action and encourage behavioural change.

Baillie Gifford is committed to funding the following priorities:

• Increasing knowledge, understanding and participation with climate action  
• Developing community-led initiatives in relation to climate action that encourage greater community power  

The types of activity the fund aims to support include projects that:

• Educate and inspire people to engage in climate action
• Build local skills, tools and resources to promote understanding and action
• Create ‘green’ skills and jobs for local people
• Support sustainable farming initiatives or ethical food systems

Funding can be used for:

• staff costs
• volunteer expenses
• general project costs
• engagement activities
• learning and evaluation
• utilities or running costs (no more than 25% of project costs)
• organisational development and management costs

Applicants will be asked to describe the impact of their work and demonstrate an understanding of the needs and issues of the communities or countries in which they intend to deliver the project. 

Additional criteria

The fund prioritises smaller charities with an income of maximum £5M GBP, and those where the grant request is not less than 10% of the total project costs.  

The fund also prioritises applications for work being delivered in areas where it has previously not provided much support, such as South America, Australasia, and East and Southeast Asia.  

As well as the standard Foundation Scotland eligibility criteria, applicants must be registered charities (i.e. registered with OSCR or the Charities Commission in the UK, or an equivalent overseas which will allow Foundation Scotland to complete the necessary due diligence and eligibility checks). If you are registered outside of the UK please get in touch before applying to discuss whether we can complete our processes with your registration.  

Who can apply?

All applicants must meet Foundation Scotland's Common eligibility criteria, please check this list before starting your application.

What can’t be funded?

Please read through What we can't fund page, these exclusions apply to all Foundation Scotland funds.

Please note that for this fund, we cannot support unregistered organisations. You must be a registered charity to apply, and we must be able to complete our necessary due diligence and eligibility checks. You'll need to submit documents in English for example, and be applying for values in GBP. 

How are decisions made?

Funding is allocated based on decisions by Baillie Gifford’s International Philanthropy group with support from Foundation Scotland.

For more details on our assessment processes please visit How funding decisions are made.