We seek to fund projects that are delivered by organisations that are well run.

When Registering organisations for our Main Grants programme, we look at areas such as governance, finance and safeguarding to establish the health of an organisation.

We fund organisations of varying sizes and capacity, and the information below describes some of the elements that we consider to be best practice.

What are we looking for in an organisation that is Registered for our Main Grants programme?

We fund organisations that are eligible for a Main Grant and that have met our Minimum Standards for Grantmaking.

We also seek to fund organisations that show strong practices around:

• Finances
• Governance
• Safeguarding for Children.

The following are a list of some of the strengths that we look for when Registering an organisation for our Man Grants programme. We may not register organisations that show weaknesses in these areas.

Finance

An organisation that has:

• An operating balance or surplus.
• A reserves policy, and meets this policy.
• Between three and twelve months of free reserves.

Governance

An organisation that has:

• Rules that ensure the meetings of the governing body have enough people in attendance to make fair decisions.
• A governing body that meets at least quarterly.
• A representative from the primary governing body’s directors on the subsidiary board, if the organisation has subsidiaries.

Safeguarding

An organisation that:

• Reviews their safeguarding children and young people’s policy at least annually.
• Regularly refreshes their staff and volunteers’ safeguarding children and young people training.
• Regularly refreshes their staff and volunteers’ training on the organisation’s safeguarding policies and procedures.
• Provides a specific Designated Safeguarding Lead.
• Regularly repeats Disclosure and Barring Service, Disclosure Scotland or Access NI checks.
• Ensures their governing body members complete safeguarding training. This training should also cover the organisation’s policy, process and culture.
• Sets out clear expectations of how staff, volunteers and children should behave in the organisation’s Code of Conduct. This includes the use of digital/social media.
• Includes a clear process in their Code of Conduct which links to their Human Resource (HR) policy. This should outline the actions to take following a breach of the Code.

We are not and cannot be an expert in safeguarding. We work alongside the NSPCC and other leading organisations to promote best practice in safeguarding children and young people.

The NSPCC website has resources on safeguarding children and young people in the voluntary and community sector. Pay particular attention to their:

• Introductory guide to safeguarding and child protection for the voluntary and community sector
• Safeguarding Checklist

We also recommend that you look at Everyone’s Business: Safeguarding for Trustees from Children England.