The British & Foreign School Society (BFSS) is currently seeking applications to offer grants to the charities for educational activities.

BFSS only funds new projects, pilot projects, or projects which are planning a distinct new phase of development. They do not fund ongoing programmes.

Priority Areas

All projects which meet criteria will be considered and assessed on their own merit. However, the Society currently has three priority areas for which it particularly welcomes applications:

• Conflict or natural disaster: Projects designed to address the need for re-establishing and renewing education where the provision of education has suffered from conflict or natural disaster.
• Girls education: Projects which focus on enhancing the opportunities and reducing barriers for girls to access education
• Looked after children: Looked after children have significantly poorer educational outcomes than children not in care. BFSS welcomes projects which pilot approaches to improving the educational attainment of looked after children so that in time they are able to take advantage of opportunities afforded by tertiary education and employment.

Categories

Projects should be for the purposes of education or training for young people up to the age of 25, and should fall into one or more of the following categories:

• Delivery of academic, early years or vocational education
• Teacher training
• Learning resources and equipment including ICT
• Community and supplementary education
• Research related to educational service (Please note that research is not funded unless linked to direct impact on educational service development)
• School construction – with a clear link to quality of education provided\Innovation through pilot projects, with plans for robust evaluation of the approach.
• Other activities/services that will remove barriers and widen educational access and opportunity, or raise educational achievement

Funding Information

• BFSS will fund projects in the range of £5,000 to £60,000 for a period of up to 3 years.
• For multi year projects, the cost per year cannot exceed £20,000. Each subsequent year’s funding is conditional on receipt of a satisfactory narrative and financial report.
• BFSS prefers projects to have some degree of matched funding. This does not have to be £ for £, but they do expect BFSS  to be funding at least 25% of the total project costs. The matched funding or contribution in kind might be provided by the community itself or by a co-funder.

BFSS does not usually Fund:

• The continuation of existing projects or services, unless this is a distinct new phase or development.
• Services which are available through the state-sponsored education system (including the Pupil Premium in the case of UK projects)
• Summer camps
• Bursaries, scholarships and endowments
• Expeditions, conferences and overseas travel
• Individual volunteering overseas
• Food or feeding programmes
• Ongoing programmes
• Research other than on educational service development
• International travel (unless a clear case is made for why this is necessary and cannot be found in the recipient country, eg a very specialist trainer)
• Projects where salaries, transport or running costs are the main expense
• Adult education programmes for people over the age of 25

Eligibility Criteria

• Organisations applying for funding should have UK charitable status or, in the case of schools, colleges, universities and Churches, “exempt charity” status. They do not fund non-UK based organisations, Community Interest Companies (CICs) or individuals.
• UK schools, colleges or universities are eligible ONLY if the involvement of other schools or the wider community is a significant part of the project.
• Organisations should have continuous UK accounts for at least three years.
• BFSS will only fund one project per charity at a time. If you are running a project with funding, you cannot apply for a new grant until you have submitted your final project report.
• BFSS focuses support on small to medium sized organisations who do not have ready access to much larger funding sources. They therefore do not usually fund charities with an average annual income above £2.5 million or below £5,000, except in exceptional circumstances. These restrictions do not apply to UK based schools, colleges and other educational establishments.
• Organisations should be directly involved in the provision of charitable services. They do not fund organisations whose primary purpose is fundraising
• They encourage close partnerships with local organisations. However, the applicant organisation must be willing to take full responsibility for the management, delivery, finances and integrity of the project.

Reporting Requirements

Reporting is normally expected six monthly for grants which are more than £10,000 per year and annual for grants of less than £10,000 per year. The release of future grant instalments is dependent on receipt of a satisfactory report. They expect:

• Six monthly ‘interim’ reports: These are designed to update BFSS on progress, ensure the project is on track, and give early warning of any potential issues on which they need to work together. They ask you to use their standard report form, but accept that you will not complete many of the data oriented sections since this is a report on progress.
• Annual Reports: These are more detailed reports with accompanying financial reporting. They must be submitted using BFSS Report Form.
• Final Reports: These reports are designed to provide a final evaluation of the project and performance against the outputs and outcomes in your grant application, and again must be submitted using Report Form.

For more information, visit BFSS.