Project support to civil society organisations

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs grants discretionary government transfers to Finnish civil society organisations (CSOs) for their development cooperation projects. Calls for proposals are opened every two years.

Principles of support

Project support for Finnish CSOs is an important form of civil society development cooperation and part of Finland's development policy implementation. CSOs engaged in development cooperation projects enhance the diversity and impact of Finland’s development cooperation in developing countries around the world through their own fields of expertise and practices. According to the Guidelines for Civil Society in Development Policy (2017) (Opens New Window), strengthening civil society is both a development policy objective and a means to promote Finland's other development policy objectives and the goals of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Project support also promotes Finland's foreign policy objectives, such as the implementation of human rights policy objectives.

Application round 2024 for the years 2025–2028

The call for project support applications was open from 22 January to 8 March 2024. The notice for the call for applications, the standard terms and condition, the assessment criteria of the call and the application instructions were available in the Applyforgrants.fi(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) service. Instructions on how to use the service and information about technical support was available at the State Treasury’s website(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window).

The applications for discretionary government grants were  assessed on the basis of the minimum requirements, qualitative criteria and an overall consideration, which are based on the Government Programme. The applications that met the minimum requirements proceeded to the qualitative assessment and the overall consideration. The preliminary criteria for the 2024 call for project support applications were presented below. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs was not obliged to award a discretionary government grant to all applicants or to award a grant equal to the amount indicated by an applicant. A maximum appropriation of EUR 25 million for 2025–2028 was planned for the application round.

Guidelines on the implementation and reporting of projects that have received a positive decision will be published on this website in autumn 2024.

Applicants could submit questions related to the application round to the Unit for Civil Society until 9 February 2024 by sending email to hanketuki.um@gov.fi.

Documents steering the call:

Material concerning the application round:

Project planning and filling in the application form:

Statistical instructions concerning the application (use these as support when filling in the Objectives and effectiveness tab of the application form):

Previous application rounds

Application round 2023–2026

Press release and list of the projects to which the support was granted for 2023-2026

Description of the project support 2023-2026 (PDF, 411 KB)

Application round 2021–2024

List of projects to which support was granted in the call for proposals in 2020

Implementation and reporting of projects that received funding in 2020-2022

E-services

Ministry for Foreign Affairs uses e-services and its electronic forms for the administration of project support. Find out about the e-services.

Disbursement request

Account of the project status form, to be used when the first instalment is requested to be paid before the annual report is submitted (by 30 April). The form should be attached to the disbursement request in the e-services.

Basic information form

Submit the basic information form once per year together with the following appendices: action plan, budget proposal, annual report, financial statement, audit report and other possible documents, such as revised rules and extract from the register of associations.

Reporting

Organisations report on their use of the granted discretionary government transfers via the Foreign Ministry's e-services. The reports must be submitted by 30 April. Applicants should also submit their basic information forms annually by the end of April.

The appendices to the annual reports are also sent electronically only. 

To download the forms, you need an Adobe Reader programme, which can be obtained free of charge. Upload the PDF forms and save them on your own computer (save target as) before opening them.

The ID data required for filling in the reporting form can be retrieved from the organisation's electronic user account, project support applications and the decision on discretionary government support as well as from the changes of use if any.

Please note that when you name the appendices, special characters (such as , . - / ä ö) must not be used. When you save appendices, make sure that the file format is also saved (for example action_plan_2013.pdf). The total size of the appendices may not exceed 10 MB. If necessary, part of the appendices can be submitted using the complementary information form.

Auditing instructions (in Finnish / English)

Tarkastusohje hanketuelle (Word, 17 KB)

Tilintarkastajan raporttimalli (Word, 58 KB)

Toimeksiannon vahvistuskirje (Word, 44 KB)

Tarkastusohjeet kohdemaan tilintarkastajalle (Word, 17 KB)

Auditor's report (Word, 54 KB)

Engagement letter (Word, 47 KB)

 

Also in this site

e-Service for civil society organisations

Development partners: The civil society

Guidelines for Civil Society in Development Policy

 

Content administrator

Unit for Civil Society