Support for civil society organisations' communications and global education projects

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has granted support to civil society organisations for development communications and global education purposes. The funding is meant for development communications and global education in Finland, focusing on development cooperation or development policy, global development issues or the reality in the developing world.

 

 

Basic principles of the support

Funding targeted at development communications and global education is Finland's Official Development Assistance (ODA) that fulfils its criteria defined by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) (PDF, 21 Kb). The main objective of the support is to increase awareness about development cooperation among the target groups, and to strengthen public support for development cooperation and interest in development cooperation, development needs and development questions.

The support can be granted to competent, non-profit associations and foundations that have been registered in Finland, which have at least 30 members or which can otherwise show evidence of sufficient resources and the capacity to manage project administration. At the time of application, the applicant must have been registered for at least two years.

Separate development communications and global education support cannot be granted to partnership organisation, umbrella organisations or special foundations to which the Ministry has granted programme support. Organisations receiving programme support can implement communications and global education projects in cooperation with some other organisation but they cannot be the actual recipients of funding.

Support for CSOs' development communications and global education is discretionary government support. The activities that are funded must be socially acceptable. The projects must be realistic and the organisations must have sufficient resources for the implementation.

Supported expenses

Support can be granted to cover the following:

  • Production of development communications and global education materials.
  • Events, campaigns, exhibitions and travel expenses of guests from developing countries to them. Travel expenses in accordance with the State Travel Regulations.
  • School visits or organisation of training.
  • Workshops and seminars.
  • Essential and reasonable costs arising from the implementation of a project, based on what has been recorded in the application or what the Ministry has required when the support was granted.
  • Reasonably priced coffee and refreshments catering and lunches during meetings related to a project.
  • Reasonable pay expenses.
  • Justified and specified administrative expenses related to a project.

Study the conditions of funding before application.

Further information about the application process can be asked from the Unit for Civil Society by email on vgk.um@formin.fi.

Application forms

To download the forms, you need an Adobe Reader programme which can be obtained free of charge.

Save the forms on your own work station before opening them (Save target as). You can edit, save or forward forms to others before you submit the application.

All forms are returned to the Ministry via its e-Service account. Find out about the e-Service.

Basic information form

Organisations applying for development communications and global education support must fill in the organisation-specific basic information form at the time of application annually.

Append the following documents to the basic information form: 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.

There is not any certain due date for the submission of the basic information form, but organisations need the code given in the acknowledgement of receipt to be able to submit new applications for support in future application cycle.

Download the basic information form on the e-Service account and submit your application. When you have returned the basic information form, you will receive a notification on your electronic user account, which includes the case ID code (which is in the form of UHA20XX-000XXX). Write this ID code under section 2.1 of the project support application (application form).

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs recommends that you submit the basic information form well in advance before the application period expires.

When an organisation has a case ID code, it can submit the project support application via the e-Service.

Project support application

A separate application form is completed for each project by the due date stated in the application advertisement of the year. All information that is essential from the point of view of the applied support and planned project must be included in the application.  Applications that arrive after the expiry date will not be processed.

The application process takes place using the Foreign Ministry's electronic application forms and the Ministry e-Service.

When your organisation has received an email and/or text message notifying that the basic information form is being processed, you can send the project application form via the e-Service during the application period.

Download the completed form on the e-Service account and submit your application. The e-Service account ID links the application to the organisation's information.

The organisation does not receive any separate receipt of acknowledgement of the application. However, it can view the basic information and application forms that it has sent to the Ministry via the e-Service by means of clicking cases at the top of the e-Service display and then selecting pending from the drop-down menu.

Processing of applications and decisions

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs processes the applications within four months of receipt. When a decision has been reached about the distribution of appropriations, the Ministry notifies the organisation about a positive or negative decision via the organisation's e-Service account.

Disbursement request and commitment

Information about a decision on discretionary government transfer (funding decision) together with its appendices is posted to the recipient's e-Service account or sent in paper format. If the granted support is conditional, the special conditions are included in the decision.

Before the disbursement of the support, the organisation must send a commitment form to the Ministry via the e-Service, authenticated by the organisation's electronic signature.

Return the signed commitment form to the Foreign Ministry within a month from the date of the funding decision.

Use the e-Service to send to the Ministry the duly completed disbursement request form, filled in according to the Ministry's instructions.

In connection with the application for payment, organisations must withhold 10% of the funding granted for the previous year. The remaining amount will be paid on the basis of a payment application, submitted separately after the final report has been adopted.

Change of use application and complementary information

Any changes with an essential impact on the project timetable or use of the support must be communicated to the Foreign Ministry without delay.

Applications for change of use of support are submitted via the e-Service. Enter the application code applying to the discretionary government transfer that the change of use concerns under the case ID code in the e-Service field.

If the organisations' basic information changes at a later phase of the project, a complementary information notification must be filed through the Ministry's e-Service. Enter the code of the first basic information form (which is in the form 20XX-KK-PP-xxxxzzzz) under the field.

Reporting

The organisation must submit to the Ministry a report on each project, prepared according to the Ministry's instructions, focusing on the project activities and the use of the funding. Submit the report no later than by the end of April (30 April) the next year. The report must cover the calendar year for which the support had been granted.

The following documents must be appended to the report:

  • The report form which includes a financial report (total sums of each type of account in the form of a budget table).

  • Breakdown of costs appendix A. The costs arising from the use of the discretionary government transfer are specified according to the same logic and in the same order as in the breakdown of costs appendix adopted by the Ministry in the application phase.  If a permission for changes of use of support during the project has been asked, it is good to append to the report information about the changes for which a separate agreement has been made with the Ministry.

  • A copy of the organisation's annual report.

  • A copy of the organisation's annual accounts (profit and loss account, balance sheet together with annexes, the previous year's monitoring data, auditor's report).

  • A signed auditor's report (either mentioned in the financial section of the report or a separate auditor's report).

  • Possible examples of the produced material (publication, printouts of material on the internet, etc.).

Organisations whose applications have been approved for 2014 report on both one- and two-year development communications and global education projects using reporting forms in paper format:

Organisations that have applied for support for 2015 electronically will report about their projects using electronic forms in 2016.

 

 

 

 

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