Our eligibility checklist

As a minimum, we carry out checks on your supporting documents as described below to ensure they meet our eligibility criteria. We may ask for further information about how your organisation meets these criteria during our assessment process.

Please carefully read the criteria below to ensure your Committee or Board understands what is required. Unfortunately, if you cannot meet these criteria, we cannot progress your application. If you are a registered company, we will download your governing documents and accounts (if independently examined or audited) from the Companies House website; you do not need to provide these with your application.

In addition, please refer to the relevant fund page you're applying for to check if there are any further criteria you need to meet, such as the location of those benefitting from your project. 

Management Committee

• There must be a minimum of three unrelated persons on the management committee or Board. This is to ensure that the group has a range of perspectives and experiences and is not dominated by the interests of a single family or similarly connected individuals.
• For the same reasons, the majority of your management committee or Board members must be unrelated. 

Governing Documents

• Your organisation has charitable purposes, and these are described in your governing document.
• Your governing document includes suitable restrictions on the disposal of assets under the organisation’s control (a charitable ‘asset lock’) and its management committee or board members' remuneration. It should feature:
  • A charitable dissolution clause (or ‘asset lock’) stating that on winding up the organisation’s net assets must be put towards a similar charitable purpose(s) to that of the organisation (which may include a named charitable organisation with a similar charitable purpose).
  • Suitable restraints on the provision of benefit to individuals. Assets should not be distributable to, or otherwise used for, the benefit of members or individuals beyond that which can reasonably be considered charitable.
• If your governing document allows for the remuneration of any Board or management committee members (for example, if the lead member of staff is also a Board Member), then your organisation must comply with OSCR’s guidance on this.  We will require the following:
  • Your organisation’s governing document must allow for only a minority of those on the Board or management committee (less than half) to be remunerated for their services (as Trustees/Board Members/committee members or under contract).
  • None of those who are remunerated as such should be involved in decisions about that remuneration.
  • Information on the nature of the services to be provided in relation to the remuneration, level of remuneration and evidence of how this was agreed and by whom. 

Accounts & Financial Procedures

• You must be able to supply your latest set of approved accounts, unless your organisation is less than 18 months old, in which case no accounts are required.
• For all constituted groups these will need to have been approved by your management committee or Board.  
• For registered charities, accounts must be prepared and scrutinised in accordance with the requirements of Office Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR). To understand what we mean by this, please refer to the guidance provided by OSCR
• Please note we do not accept abbreviated or micro-entity accounts as these do not provide enough information for us to assess the financial health of your group. If you normally produce micro-entity accounts you can send us the management accounts used to prepare your annual accounts, however, these must also have been approved by your management committee or Board
• You must have your own bank account
• The organisation name on your accounts must match the name on the governing document and bank account.
• Your financial transactions are required to be either authorised (before payment) or checked (after payment) by another person independent of the person initiating the payment. We often refer to this as having two account signatories.
• None of your appointed account signatories can be related. This is to act as a safeguard against fraud or misuse of charitable funds under the organisation’s control.

Safeguarding

If your organisation's core work (as stated in your governing document), or the project you are applying to us for, includes work with children and/or vulnerable adults, it must have an appropriate Safeguarding Policy and Procedures setting out how the policy is implemented in place before application. This must, as a minimum, cover the following: 

• Recruitment and selection of employees and volunteers
• Employee and volunteer induction and training in safeguarding
• Safe arrangements for all work involving vulnerable adults/children and young people, including procedures for responding to and reporting abuse or suspected abuse
• Contact details, including at least one nominated Safeguarding representative.
• Here you can find Foundation Scotland's approach to safeguarding policies

Policies

Applicants are expected to have adopted or be developing other policies and procedures appropriate to the organisation’s size and nature and in line with any legal requirements. For example, a Volunteering Policy and/or Equal Opportunities Policy.

If you have any questions regarding the above criteria, send an email to grants@foundationscotland.org.uk