General guidelines

The FIOH Fund is a Charity
The FIOH Fund is a UK registered charity (as distinct from a trust).

Gift Aid
This charity status has certain advantages which might be of interest to anyone wishing to submit an application. For example, if a donation is given by a UK tax payer then the Fund can claim an extra 25% from the UK Government's Inland Revenue department. Hence, if you have had visitors/volunteers from the UK who would like to support your work you could suggest that they donate the money to a UK charity who might be willing to apply for extra funds from the Inland Revenue (this is called the Gift Aid scheme). The FIOH Fund might be willing to do this but will charge for administration and bank charges on money transfers. It should then be noted that the FIOH Fund will have ultimate responsibity to ensure, as far as practicable, that the stated outcomes for the project have been achieved.

What the FIOH Fund is unable to provide
Currently the FIOH Fund cannot generally give grants from its small free reserves and must seek funds from other sources, usually trusts (Trusts will normally only give grants through UK registered charities). As a general guide, the process of applying to major trusts for funds for a large project can take from one to two years with no guarantee of a grant being awarded at the end of the process.

The FIOH Fund cannot consider a project for funding on the basis of a written application alone, no matter how well it has been presented. The Fund must be able to assess the honesty/trustworthiness of the applicant in some way - usually an independent reference based in the UK who has knowledge of the applicant and the project area. Hence it would not be worthwhile applying to the Fund for any project for which funds are required in the short term.

Non-grant assistance
The FIOH Fund is interested in long term associations with partners who reflect its own aims, vision and ethos. The Fund does not expect perfectly presented applications initially and is willing to help build the capacity of non-government organisations and community groups to present applications to the basic standard required to seek grant support.

The FIOH Fund believes in the value of networking and may be able to help by providing information on a range of topics connected with development and project management or refer applicants to other possible sources of funding.
The Fund also provides a free service to its network partners in the form of space on its web site http://www.fiohnetwork.org . The web site presents information on partner activities and contact details and personal testimonies and case histories. The Fund would expect Email communication between Network partners on matters of mutual interest.
As the Fund builds its own free reserves, the trustees will tend to focus on grants for feasibility studies/situation analysis, surveys, information resources and equipment which can be used to provide the background information required to support applications for large projects.