When you establish a fund with County Durham
Foundation, we guarantee that every time a grant is approved from your fund,
each applicant has been through our strict 7-stage selection process, making
sure that every single applicant is eligible for your help:
Applicant assessment - each person
or group wishing to apply is asked to fill out a detailed questionnaire,
especially designed to be easy and straightforward to complete, whilst
getting the information we need to make informed decisions.
The financials - for groups, we always
investigate whether they’re solvent, are sitting on large amounts
of their own money, or have any deficits that are not being adequately
addressed. This is vital to ensure your money is used correctly by an
organisation with the skills to financially manage the project. For individuals,
we make sure that their ideas are costed out appropriately and they are
genuinely in need of financial assistance.
A cast-iron constitution - to ensure
that the group is well governed and run effectively, we insist that they
have a set of rules outlining their responsibilities and area of work.
We check that they are democratic, and legal, working to help good causes
rather than themselves.
Policies to protect - we ensure that
comprehensive equal opportunities and child protection policies are in
place, so you are assured that we have children and vulnerable people’s
best interests and welfare at heart. Hopefully, this helps them
to avoid incidents, but should one occur the applicants are trained and
equipped to deal effectively with the situation.
Safeguards - in order to safeguard
your interests, a set number of compulsory checks are carried out to ascertain
that an applicant is genuine and in real need of your support, ensuring
your Fund is only used for what it is intended.
Interviewed - once all of the
above stages have been satisfied, the applicants are interviewed by
telephone where we will review their application and explore their
ideas in more depth (we are looking for good ideas and the ability
to deliver, not just applicants who are good at filling in forms).
Applicants eligibility - it is
only after this detailed process that we put applications forward
to your Fund, allowing you to make informed decisions about your grant
making.
By making sure we go through
this process every time we can absolutely guarantee every person put forward
to you is entirely eligible for your support. In addition, by sticking
to this procedure with every application we can ensure that your money
is unlikely to be misused, taking away any distress or embarrassment this
might cause you. If you choose to support the applicant, you
can be absolutely certain your money is being used in accordance with
your wishes whilst enabling the implementation of genuinely good ideas
that will make a real and effective change to the lives of local people.
About Us
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