Girlguiding Surrey East Inclusion Fund
The Inclusion Fund is a discretionary source of financial help available for individuals who belong to Girlguiding Surrey East to support their Guiding activities if they are experiencing financial difficulties. Girlguiding Surrey East strives to offer a positive Guiding experience to all of our members and volunteers and don’t wish financial barriers to prohibit this.
For clarity an individual of Girlguiding Surrey East is anyone with a Girlguiding membership number and registered on GO, this includes all of our Young Members, Adult Members & Adult Recognised Volunteers.
What can the Inclusion Fund help with?
Requests for monetary support may include but are not limited to:
- Uniform
- Day Trips and Events
- Residential Activities
- Termly Subscriptions payable to the unit
- Annual Central Subscription Payments (where the unit requests this as a standalone payment from parents & carers). When requested for adults, this would usually only be paid for those holding unit roles.
The fund will not provide monetary support for non-individual requests. Examples of this may include but are not limited to Unit/District/Division Rent, Activity Items, Activity Days, and Insurance for equipment. Financial support towards properties managed within the County are also not supported by the Inclusion Fund.
Each application and the amount of funding awarded is considered on an individual basis. Allocation of funds is discretionary. There are no restrictions on how often an individual may apply within a calendar year or for what reason. The volume of applications, the amount in the fund and whether an individual has applied before will form part of the overall consideration when awarding support.
Payments from the fund are grants and if awarded do not need to be repaid.
Making an application
An adult member of Girlguiding should request financial support from the Inclusion Fund by completing the Inclusion Fund Application Form and by emailing it to the County Treasurer. Your local commissioner must be aware of the request and have had the opportunity to consider whether there is funding at other levels to support the request too. Your Division Commissioner will need to propose the application at the County meeting the application is considered.
If the request is for a young member, the adult member will be the main person that the County correspond with. If the request is for an adult member/recognised volunteer, the County will correspond with the person that submits the request (which can be the person themselves, but is more likely to be a Unit Leader or Commissioner).
The request will be considered by the County Executive (which may create an Inclusion Committee depending on the volume of applications). This could take up to 3 months as it may need to be an item on the next available County meeting agenda. The applicant will be notified of the outcome of the application by either the County Treasurer and/or their Division Commissioner.
Monetary funds will only be paid to a Girlguiding registered bank account, this can be Unit, District or Division Level. Payments from the fund are grants and if awarded do not need to be repaid, unless the money is not used for the purpose it was requested or the person leaves guiding before the grant is spent. If so, the funds should be returned to the County to enable other members to utilise those funds.
Girlguiding Surrey East welcomes requests from those that may have received partial funding from a local level too, such as District or Division. It would be useful to add this information when applying for the monetary funds from the County.
Finance
The inclusion fund will be funded by Girlguiding Surrey East as required. The initial funding is seeded from what was known as the Hardship and/or Centenary Fund.
Record Keeping
The County Treasurer will maintain a record of the amount in the Fund, and the amounts awarded. Any published information will refer only to which unit/district/division for data privacy reasons. This information can be requested by our membership. Previous grant awards may form part of the consideration of the committee in making awards.
The County Treasurer will also maintain a record of applications that are not supported on a rolling five-year basis as although the fund is discretionary and needs to be flexible, this may form part of decision making to ensure fairness to all.
Changes in Policy
The Inclusion Fund is a discretionary fund to allow and support flexible guiding. The need for monetary awards may change over time and it is recommended the County Executive reviews the criteria every two years.
Version 1.0 / November 2021